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ITbe  "dntvetBit^  of  CbtcaQo 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFBLLEK 


MAGAZINES  OF  A  MARKET-METROPOLIS 

BEING  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  LITERARY  PERI- 
ODICALS AND  LITERARY  INTERESTS 
OF  CHICAGO 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED   TO  THE    FACULTY   OF  THE   GRADUATE  SCHOOL   OF   ARTS    AND 

LITERATURE    IN    CANDIDACY   FOR  THE  DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT  OF  SOCIOLOGY) 


BY 

HERBERT  E.  FLEMING 


A  Reprint  of    Papers  Entitled   "The    Literary  Interests  of  Chicago,"   from    The 

American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vols.  XI  and  XII 

Chicago,  1906 


' 


TLbc  Xllntversitg  of  CbicaQO 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


MAGAZINES  OF  A  MARKET-METROPOLIS 

BEING  A  HISTORY  OF  THE  LITERARY  PERI- 
ODICALS AND  LITERARY  INTERESTS 
OF  CHICAGO 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED   TO   THE    FACULTY   OF  THE   GRADUATE   SCHOOL    OF   ARTS    AND 

LITERATURE    IN    CANDIDACY   FOR   THE   DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(department  of  sociology) 


BY 

HERBERT  E.  FLEMING 


A  Reprint  of    Papers    Entitled    "The    Literary    Interests   of    Chicago,"    from    T^e 

American  Journal  of  Sociology,  Vols.  XI  and  XII 

Chicago,  1906 


PRINTED  AT   THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO    PRESS 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

VOL.  PAGE 

I.    The    Pioneer     Periodicals    of    Prairie     Days, 

1845-1862 XI,    377 

II.    Periodical     Literature     Following     the    War 

1865-1871      . XI,    396 

III.  Literary    Periodicals   Following    the    Chicago 

Fire,  1871-1880 XI,     499 

IV.  Journals  for  Letters  in  the   Market-Metropo- 
lis, 1880-90 XI,    512 

V.    -Esthetic  Periodicals  of  the  World's  Fair  City, 

1890-1900 XI,     784 

VI.    The  Commercialized  Magazines  of  a  Cosmopoli- 
tan Center,  1900  to  Date XII,      68 

VII.     Summary   of    General    Conclusions,    Including 

Statistics  of  the  Periodicals XII,     112 


1B5266 


VERSITY 

OF 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO.     I 


HERBERT    E.    FLEMING 
University  of  Chicago 


I.     THE  PIONEER  PERIODICALS 

"  We  shall  be  slow  to  believe  there  is  not  talent  enough  in  the  West  to 
maintain  a  character  for  a  work  of  this  kind."  —  From  the  Western  Magazine, 
Chicago,  October,  1845. 

"  Present  indications  seem  to  show  that  we  did  not  overrate  the  literary 
taste  of  the  West,  when  we  believed  the  western  people  able  and  willing  to 
support  a  magazine  of  their  own."  —  From  the  Western  Magazine,  Chicago, 
November,  1845. 

"  *  The  literary  interests  of  Chicago '  —  they  belong,  do  they 
not,  in  that  important  category  where  one  discovers  the  historic 
'  snakes  of  Ireland '  ?  "  This  whimsical  question,  put  to  the  col- 
lector of  material  for  these  papers  by  a  distinguished  New  York 
publisher,  suggests  a  long-standing  estimate  of  Chicago  character. 
This  city,  the  second  in  America  and  the  metropolis  of  the  Middle 
West,  has  not  been  noted  for  traits  of  aesthetic  interest.  Ever 
since  the  days  of  its  earliest  prominence  as  a  small  market-town, 
and  through  the  quick  years  of  phenomenal  growth  into  a  great 
business  center  and  world-mart,  the  name  "  Chicago "  has  been 
the  one  above  every  city  name  standing  for  materialism.  As  a 
rough  characterization,  this  has  been  accurate  enough.  And  yet, 
from  common  knowledge,  everyone  knows  that  there  have  been  in 
this  community  some  manifestations  of  the  aesthetic  interest, 
including  the  literary  interest. 

Just  exactly  what  are  the  variations  of  the  universal  literary 
interest  which  arise  in  such  a  market-metropolis?  That  is  the 
question  which  may  well  lead  to  a  detailed  search  for  more  than 
the  commonly  known  facts  concerning  this  particular  interest. 
The  term  "  interests  "  is  much  in  vogue  among  the  leading  pro- 
fessors of  general  sociology  in  America,  as  well  as  with  the 
sociologists  of  Europe.    Interests  may  be  defined  as  the  concrete, 

377 


378  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

working  expressions  of  those  constant  forces  generated  by  the 
daily  desires  of  men,  women,  and  children.  The  concept  may 
wxll  serve  as  the  starting-mark  for  an  endeavor  to  describe  and 
explain  the  social  process  in  whole  or  in  part.  It  leads  to  the 
selection  of  some  particular  interest.  The  one  thus  picked  out 
from  the  congeries  of  interests  that  go  to  make  up  the  life  of 
Chicago,  as  the  subject  for  the  reports  here  submitted,  is  a  sub- 
division of  the  aesthetic  interest.  The  main  query  as  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  literary  interest  in  this  commercial  city  unfolds  into 
many  subsidiary  questions.  And  since  the  idea  of  interests  con- 
notes their  interdependence  in  the  social  process  as  a  whole,  some 
of  these  questions  are  directed  at  tracing  the  relations  of  the 
literary  interest  to  the  other  interests  of  Chicago;  for  example, 
to  the  business  interests.  Half  are  inquiries  about  literary  pro- 
duction ;  the  others,  on  the  reading  done  by  all  classes  of  people 
to  satisfy  the  desire  for  the  artistic  through  literary  form  —  liter- 
ary consumption.  In  getting  answers,  the  collection  of  facts  for 
narrative  reports  on  merely  a  few  phases  shows  that  in  Chicago 
the  literary  interest  has  been  greater  in  quantity,  and  more  varied 
and  interesting  in  quality,  than  is  generally  supposed,  even  among 
the  local  litterateurs. 

Efforts  to  establish  literary  magazines  and  periodicals  in  Chi- 
cago wxre  begun  as  far  back  as  the  early  prairie  days.  These 
attempts  were  the  earliest  budding  of  the  creative  literary  desire 
in  this  locality ;  and  similar  undertakings  have  been  its  most  con- 
stant expression  s^'nce  then.  All  told,  at  least  306  magazines  and 
journals,  whose  generic  mark  is  an  appeal  chiefly  to  the  aesthetic 
or  artistic  sense,  have  sprung  up  in  Chicago ;  and  there  have  been 
some  fifteen  distinct  varieties.  Of  this  large  crop,  twenty-seven, 
or  9  per  cent,  of  the  total,  germinated,  lived  their  lives,  and  died 
in  the  forties  and  fifties. 

About  these  pioneer  magazines  and  journals,  as  of  those  in 
each  decadal  period,  one  may  ask  many  questions :  What  was 
the  character  of  the  typical  literary  periodicals  ?  What  were  the 
social  factors  in  their  origin?  How  go  the  stories  of  their 
struggles  for  permanence  ?  What  were  the  interrelations  between 
these  publishing  enterprises  and  other  interests  ?    Was  the  literary 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  379 

interest  always  engrafted  on  a  business  interest?  What  were 
the  causes  for  the  brevity  of  duration  and  early  death  of  these 
periodicals? 

In  reply,  a  half-dozen  dusty  files,  to  be  found  in  the  library  of 
the  Chicago  Historical  Society,  will  tell  an  interesting  story.  It 
is  often  said  that  Chicago  is  the  graveyard  of  literary  magazines. 
And  it  is  true  that  in  the  vaults  of  the  Historical  Society  library, 
the  Public  Library,  the  Newberry  Library,  and  other  institutions 
of  Chicago,  the  remains  of  fifty-five  such  literary  creations  lie 
buried,  the  relics  filed  for  all  the  periods.  In  gathering  data  on 
the  magazines  of  the  later  periods,  thirty-three  men  and  women 
who  were  connected,  as  publishers,  editors,  or  contributors,  with 
forty-three  Chicago  literary  periodicals,  have  been  interviewed. 

Only  three  living  witnesses  of  periodical  events  in  the  pioneer 
times  could  be  found ;  and  two  of  these  were  merely  newsboys  in 
those  days.  General  James  Grant  Wilson,  of  New  York  city,  is 
the  only  surviving  literary  man  who  was  among  the  editors 
directing  campaigns  for  the  periodic  publication  of  literary  efforts 
in  the  Chicago  field  before  the  Civil  War.  From  his  present  liter- 
ary headquarters.  General  Wilson  sent  on  illuminating  recollec- 
tions of  these  undertakings.  The  histories  of  Chicago  are  more 
instructive  concerning  the  literary  development  of  the  earlier 
periods  than  of  the  later,  and  they  also  furnish  side-light  on  the 
economic  and  social  conditions.  However,  they  give  no  adequate 
literary  history  of  Chicago.  Even  Rufus  Blanchard,  having 
himself,  in  1858,  undertaken  the  establishment  of  an  ambitious 
quarterly,  made  no  mention  of  literary  magazines  when  he  wrote 
a  history  of  Chicago.  It  is,  then,  to  the  old  files  that  we  turn  for 
the  story  of  the  pioneer  periodicals. 

Although  the  impulse  to  write  and  to  publish  is  a  phenomenon 
of  the  individual,  the  constant  reflection  of  environment,  both 
physical  and  spiritual,  or  social,  has  shone  in  the  literary  maga- 
zines and  papers  of  Chicago  and  "the  West."  This  was  clear 
and  simple  in  those  of  the  forties,  the  days  of  the  western  prairie 
pioneers.  In  the  magazines  of  today  it  is  clear,  but  complex. 
The  keynote  to  which  the  literary  publications  of  the  midland 
metropolis  have  been  attuned  is  westernism.     In  the  sweep  of  six 


380  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

decades  of  local,  national,  and  international  development,  the 
character  of  this  western  spirit  has  unfolded  in  various  modifica- 
tions. It  has  passed,  with  shading  emphasis,  through  western 
sectionalism  to  national  westernism  and  western  nationalism,  and 
has  come,  finally,  to  cosmopolitan  westernism  and  western  cos- 
mopolitanism. We  find  this  at  once  apparent  by  dipping  into 
these  published  records  by  periods.  Nothing  is  stamped  so  clear 
on  the  pages  of  all  the  literary  magazines  and  journals  of  Chicago, 
however,  as  the  picture  of  the  prairies  and  the  expression  of  the 
western  Zeitgeist  of  this  section  filling  those  of  the  period  prior 
to  our  nation's  Civil  War  —  those  of  the  forties  and  fifties. 

The  titles  proclaim  this  fact.  The  first  weekly  of  predomi- 
nantly literary  character  was  named,  in  response  to  the  stimulus 
of  environment,  the  Gem  of  the  Prairie.  This  paper  retained  its 
prairie  name  from  the  founding  in  1844  until  it  became  the  Sun- 
day edition  of  the  Chicago  Daily  Tribune  in  1852.  Before  it  was 
started,  the  Prairie  Farmer,  1841-1905  —  an  agricultural  journal 
which,  during  its  pioneer  stage,  was  largely  literary  in  leaning  — 
had  set  the  copy  for  titles  derived  from  the  fields  and  lands. 
Sloan's  Garden  City,  1853-54,  a  weekly,  achieved  considerable 
prominence  because  of  a  serial  story,  by  William  H.  Bushnell, 
entitled  "  Prairie  Fire."  This  "  tale  of  early  Illinois  "  attracted 
many  subscribers,  and  was  copyrighted  in  January,  1854,  and 
reprinted  in  pamphlet  form.  Finally,  for  a  few  months  in  1856, 
D.  B.  Cooke  &  Co.,  booksellers,  published  the  Prairie  Leaf. 

The  word  "western"  or  the  name  "Chicago"  appears  in  the 
titles  of  nearly  all  the  early  periodicals  not  named  from  the 
prairies.  Only  one  in  this  period  had  a  caption  of  dictinctly  national 
significance ;  and  that  one  was  most  ephemeral.  The  first  literary 
magazine,  in  standard  magazine  form,  to  be  published  in  Chicago 
was  the  Western  Magazine  —  October,  1845,  to  September,  1846 
—  from  which  quotations  appear  in  the  headpiece  to  this  paper.  In 
later  decades  there  were  two  magazines  given  the  same  name. 
Other  early  ones  with  typical  titles  were  the  Garland  of  the  West, 
July,  1845;  the  Lady's  Western  Magadne,  1848;  the  Youth's 
Western  Banner,  1853;  and  the  Western  Garland,  published 
simultaneously  at  Chicago,  Louisville,  and  St.  Louis  for  a  short 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  381 

time  in  1856.  The  Chicago  Ariel  was  a  short-lived  sprite  of  1846. 
The  Chicago  Dollar  Weekly,  a  Hterary  journal  of  merit,  existed 
through  a  part  of  the  year  1849.  The  Chicago  Record,  1857-62, 
was  the  longest-lived  periodical  during  the  latter  part  of  the 
pioneer  season,  and  one  of  the  most  important  containing  the  city's 
name  in  its  title.  Both  the  Chicago  and  western  sentiments  were 
among  the  features,  which  —  if  we  may  quote  a  salutatory  — "  the 
Iron-willed  Press  has  forever  stamped"  upon  a  meritorious 
literary-historical  magazine  having  five  monthly  issues  in  1857. 
Its  name,  printed  in  large  letters,  was  the  Chicago  Magazine:  The 
West  as  it  Is. 

This  western  interest  the  editors  and  publishers  consciously 
avowed.  It  was  heralded  with  virility  in  many  salutatories  and 
editorial  announcements.  The  Literary  Budget,  a  journal  of 
truly  high  standard,  on  changing  from  a  monthly  to  a  weekly, 
said,  January  7,  1854: 

The  West  should  have  a  marked  and  original  literature  of  its  own. 
Writers  of  fiction  have  used  up  all  the  incidents  of  our  glorious  revolutionary 
period.  The  romantic  scenery  of  the  East,  too,  has  been  made  to  aid  in  the 
construction  of  some  of  the  best  romances  ever  written.  We  do  not  object 
to  this.  On  the  contrary,  we  rejoice  —  are  thankful  it  is  so.  But  a  new  field  is 
open  to  authorship.    We  wish  to  present  its  advantages. 

The  Great  West,  in  her  undulating  prairies,  deep-wooded  highlands, 
mighty  rivers,  and  remnants  of  aboriginal  races,  presents  topics  teeming  with 
interest  to  every  reader,  and  big  with  beautiful  scenes  for  the  artist's  eye.  The 
West  is  full  of  subject-matter  for  legend,  story,  or  history.  Sublime  scenery 
to  inspire  the  poet  is  not  wanting.  All  that  is  lacking  is  a  proper  channel. 
This  channel  we  offer.  The  Budget  claims  to  be  a  western  literary  paper, 
and  we  invite  writers  to  send  us  articles  on  western  subjects,  for  publication. 

Such  unqualified  western  sectionalism  had  its  roots  in  the 
economic  and  political  situation,  and  the  facts  regarding  the  popu- 
lation of  Chicago  and  its  environing  prairies.  In  the  late  forties 
and  early  fifties  Chicago  was  the  growing  center  of  a  more  or  less 
isolated  western  or  northwestern  empire.  Despite  the  lake  trans- 
portation, which  began  in  1835,  as  Blanchard  says,  in  his  Dis- 
covery and  Conquest  of  the  Northwest,  with  a  History  of  Chicago, 
"up  to  the  era  of  railroads,  the  Mississippi  River  was  a  more 
important  channel  of  trade  to  the  state  of  Illinois  than  the  lakes," 


382  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

It  was  not  until  1852  that  lines  of  railroad  giving  connection  with 
the  eastern  states  entered  Chicago.  For  four  years  before  that 
time  the  engine  "Pioneer,"  brought  here  on  a  brig,  had  been 
hauling  trains  on  the  Galena  &  Chicago  Union  Railway,  which 
was  the  nucleus  of  the  Northwestern  system.  Ever  since  1837 
the  citizens  had  been  active  over  a  big  internal  improvement 
scheme  for  a  railway  system  to  cover  the  state  as  a  unit ;  and  by 
1850  a  charter  had  been  granted  the  Illinois  Central,  assuring  a 
Mississippi  Valley  system  centered  in  Chicago. 

The  population  when  the  first  magazine  was  established,  in 
1845,  numbered  12,083.  ^^  grew  rapidly  to  84,113  by  1856.  In 
the  early  part  of  this  period  the  people  composing  it  were  chiefly 
native-born,  the  adventurous  sons  of  Yankees  in  the  seaboard 
section.  When  the  foreign  immigration  set  in  heavily,  during 
the  later  forties,  the  newcomers  did  not  produce  any  marked 
effect  by  giving  a  varied,  cosmopolitan  character,  such  as  masses 
of  men  from  other  lands  have  since  contributed. 

These  men  from  the  states  near  the  eastern  seaboard  had 
brought  with  them  a  tradition  of  American  magazines  which 
dated  back  to  1741,  when  Benjamin  Franklin  had  established,  on 
English  models,  the  General  Magazine  and  Historical  Chronicle. 
But  that  recollection  was  of  magazines  that  were,  almost  neces- 
sarily, of,  by,  and  for  a  distinct  section,  many  of  them  having  had 
state  names,  such  as  the  Massachusetts  Magazine.  And  the 
magazines  which  came  from  the  East  for  Chicago  readers  in  the 
ante-Civil  War  days  were  emphatically  of  the  East.  But  even 
these  did  not  begin  to  come  regularly  to  the  West  until  1850, 
after  ten  literary  periodicals  had  already  been  attempted  in  Chi- 
cago. It  should  not  be  surprising  that  in  their  literary  isolation 
these  pioneers  should  have  undertaken  the  creation  of  their  own 
literature,  and  that  their  literary  journals  should  have  been  as 
sectional  in  spirit  as  those  they  had  known  in  their  earlier  homes. 

This  tone  in  Chicago  periodicals  was  not  changed,  but  really 
heightened,  by  the  coming  of  the  seaboard  city  magazines  which 
were  then  so  markedly  eastern  in  character.  Mr.  George  H. 
Fergus,  an  old  gentleman  who  today,  at  an  office  in  Lake  Street, 
continues  the  business  of  his  father,  Robert  Fergus,  Chicago's 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  383 

first  printer  and  the  printer  of  several  of  Chicago's  first  peri- 
odicals, talks  vividly  of  the  first  arrival  of  Harper's  New  Monthly 
Magazine.  That  was  in  1850,  when  Harper's  was  founded. 
Getting  copies  from  \V.  W.  Dannenhower,  who  two  years  later 
started  publication  of  the  Literary  Budget,  Mr.  Fergus  sold  them 
at  an  eight-cent  profit.  By  1854  the  Literary  Budget  contained 
notices  of  Putnam's  Magazine,  Graham's  Magazine,  and  Knicker- 
bocker Magazine,  which  latter,  by  its  very  name,  showed  its 
sectionalism.  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  with  its  emphasis  on  the 
Atlantic  idea,  w^as  not  begun  until  1857,  the  same  year  that  saw 
the  advent  of  the  Chicago  Magazine:  The  West  as  it  Is.  In  an 
article  on  "American  Periodicals,"  October  i,  1892,  the  Dial,  a 
recognized  authority,  says : 

It  is  a  little  surprising  that  the  eastern  magazines  should  so  long  have 
exemplified  the  provincial  spirit.  Until  about  twenty  years  ago  they  rarely 
took  cognizance  of  the  existence  of  any  country  or  population  west  of  the 
Alleghanies. 

In  the  founding  of  magazines  and  literary  journals  in  early 
Chicago  is  perhaps  to  be  seen  an  example  of  the  principle  "  imita- 
tion," made  so  much  of  by  the  French  sociologist,  Tarde.  And 
his  "  invention  "  and  "  adaptation  "  may  be  found  in  some  of  the 
developments  and  in  the  westernization  of  these  periodicals. 
Western  sectionalism  was  the  counterpart,  in  magazinedom,  of 
New  England  and  Knickerbocker  sectional  spirit. 

Nevertheless,  more  than  one  of  these  pro-western  publishers 
expected  an  eastern  circulation.  "  Devoted  to  western  subjects  — 
consequently  more  interesting  to  distant  readers  and  equally  so  to 
western  people"  —  this  quiet  assumption  is  quoted  from  No.  i. 
Vol.  I,  of  Sloan's  Garden  City.  It  appeared  in  1853.  By  1857 
Chicago  and  the  West  found  themselves  leaping  forward  in  such 
a  rapid  pace  of  growth  that  self-confident  boasting  became  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  city  and  section.  "  We  believe  failure  was  never 
yet  wedded  to  Chicago,"  declared  the  editor  of  the  Chicago 
Magazine:  The  West  as  it  Is,  in  his  "  Introductory,"  which 
appeared  during  March  of  that  year.  Then,  concerning  the 
breadth  of  the  field  for  circulation,  he  went  on  to  say : 


384  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

We  propose  to  fill  these  pages  with  such  matter  as  will  make  this  publica- 
tion a  Chicago-western  magazine.  We  shall  aim  to  make  it  a  vade  mecum 
between  the  East  and  the  West  —  a  go-between  carrj'ing  to  the  men  of  the 
East  a  true  picture  of  the  West  which  will  satisfy  their  desire  for  informa- 
tion on  the  great  topics  connected  with  this  part  of  their  common  country. 
We  therefore  bespeak  for  our  work  a  place  in  the  eastern  market,  and  some 
offset  there  to  the  competition  we  must  meet  with  in  the  circulation  of  eastern 
periodicals  in  the  western  field.  The  West  will  learn  to  patronize  this 
monthly  for  the  love  of  its  own  ideas ;  the  East  will  read  it  to  get  that 
knowledge  of  us  which  they  cannot  get  from  any  other  source. 

In  the  April  number  the  publisher  said  :  "  Buy  extra  copies  to 
send  east."  In  the  August  number,  which  was  the  last,  there 
appeared  an  advertisement  addressed  to  "  Men  of  the  West," 
urging  them  to  purchase  copies  of  the  magazine,  and  thereby  aid 
in  establishing  a  literature  of  their  own,  and  a  monthly  magazine, 
also  of  their  own,  "as  good  as  Harper's,  Putnam's,  or  Godey's" 

An  exclusively  western  support  was  all  that  the  periodical 
publishers  of  the  forties  and  earlier  fifties  had  sought.  The 
Gem  of  the  Prairie,  1844-52,  in  its  editorial  columns  from  time  to 
time  asked  for  "  such  support  as  it  might  receive  from  the  people 
of  the  northwestern  states  of  the  Union."  In  1851,  the  last  year 
before  its  identity  was  submerged  in  that  of  the  Tribune,  the 
editor  announced  that  for  six  years  the  periodical  had  enjoyed 
such  support.  As  a  result,  the  Gem  of  the  Prairie  could  then  be 
regarded  as  "  established  on  a  permanent  basis."  The  publisher 
of  the  Western  Magazine,  1845-46,  Chicago's  initial  venture  in 
magazine  form,  rated  the  western  demand  for  a  western  periodical 
of  that  type  as  large  enough  to  furnish  permanent  support.  Many 
subsequent  projectors  of  western  magazines  have  held  to  the  same 
belief.  The  Literary  Budget,  1852-55,  expected  western  sub- 
scribers only,  and  called  upon  "  the  friends  of  western  literature  " 
to  organize  clubs  for  co-operation  "  in  the  maintenance  of  a  good 
literary  paper  in  this  section  of  the  country." 

The  number  of  copies  in  the  Literary  Budget's  first  issue  on 
becoming  a  weekly,  January  7,  1854,  as  recorded  in  an  editorial 
announcement,  was  3,000.  This  is  the  only  figure  on  the  circu- 
lation of  ante-bellum  periodicals  that  could  be  found.  The  first 
of  the  annual  Newspaper  Directories,  which  are  the  chief  source 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  385 

of  the  statistics  compiled  for  these  reports  concerning  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  magazines  and  periodicals  of  the  later  periods,  did 
not  appear  until  1869.  The  figure  given  by  the  Budget,  however, 
undoubtedly  indicates  the  average  number  of  copies  printed  for 
the  prairie  periodicals  of  western  circulation. 

A  lack  of  businesslike  estimates,  and  an  abundance  of  over- 
optimistic  speculations  about  the  geographic  extent  of  the  market 
for  them,  have  been  constant  causes  of  death  for  literary  pub- 
lishing projects  in  Chicago.  In  general,  those  publishers  who 
have  sought  only,  or  mainly,  a  western  market  for  their  output 
have  had  a  measure  of  success.  Those  who,  like  the  editor  of  the 
Chicago  Magazine:  The  West  as  it  Is,  expected  readers  in  the 
eastern  states  eagerly  to  accept  their  literary  product,  have,  until 
recently,  been  altogether  disappointed.  They  have  found  that, 
while  the  people  of  the  states  east  of  Illinois  wish  to  know  of  the 
West,  they  want  a  literary  presentation  of  western  life  made  from 
their  own  point  of  view.  The  outlook  of  the  writers  for  the  early 
periodicals  of  Chicago  was  too  restricted. 

A  detailed  story  of  each  of  these  early  efforts,  however,  would 
show  that  the  central  motive  of  the  men  making  them  was  not 
commercial  success.  Seriously  and  earnestly  they  strove  to  create 
a  literature.  Some  even  were  so  devoted  that  it  might  truly  be 
said  they  were  the  high-priests  of  a  fetish,  the  idol  being  a  Litera- 
ture of  the  West.  Of  the  twenty-seven  literary  periodicals 
started  at  Chicago  in  the  decades  before  i860,  44  per  cent,  may  be 
classified  as  purely  literary,  while  33  per  cent,  were  of  the  literary- 
miscellany  type,  and  11  per  cent,  of  the  literature-information 
variety.  The  proprietors  were  not  publishers,  not  highly  devel- 
oped captains  in  the  industry  of  manufacturing  and  marketing 
letters.    They  were,  rather,  or  strove  to  be,  editors. 

William  Rounseville,  of  Rounseville  &  Co.,  the  founder  of 
the  first  literary  magazine  published  in  Chicago,  was  such  an 
editor.  He  literally  unfurled  the  banner  of  western  literature,  in 
the  Indian  summer  month  of  1845.  The  cover  of  his  magazine 
was  illustrated  with  two  large  trees,  an  Indian  and  his  tepee  at 
the  base  of  one,  and  a  prairie  schooner  at  the  base  of  the  other. 
A  streamer  was  strung  from  tree  to  tree.    This  streamer  bore  the 


386  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

words  Western  Magazine.  The  name  of  William  Rounseville, 
as  author,  appears  in  the  first  number  at  the  head  of  five  articles, 
including  the  first  instalment  of  a  serial  story  entitled  "  A  Pioneer 
of  the  Prairies." 

The  development  of  western  literary  talent  was  the  chief  task 
which  this  editor  undertook.  Since  his  day  editors  and  publishers 
in  Chicago  have  discovered  and  brought  out  many  writers,  though 
some  have  not  laid  so  much  emphasis  on  that  part  of  their  work. 
Mr.  Rounseville's  first  editorial  chat  with  his  public  was  headed 
"Our  Contributors."  He  cited  the  fact  that  several  entire 
strangers  to  him  had  contributed,  as  evidence  of  the  interest  in 
literary  efforts  here.  William  H.  Bushnell,  a  journeyman  printer 
who  was  the  most  prolific  of  the  pioneer  writers,  contributed  a 
"Legend  of  the  Upper  Mississippi,"  entitled  "  Ke-O-Sau-Que," 
and  a  poem  on  "The  Dead  Indian."  J.  T.  Trowbridge,  another 
prairie  poet,  was  the  contributor  of  some  verses  on  "  The  Prairie 
Land."  The  number  contained  a  few  woodcuts.  The  best  of  the 
illustrations  was  a  picture  of  Starved  Rock,  accompanying  a 
legend  of  that  historic  spot. 

The  style  of  many  of  the  contributions  to  the  Western  Maga- 
zine was  crude,  though  in  some  the  literary  form  was  excellent. 
Without  doubt,  Rounseville  &  Co.  paid  little  or  nothing  for  articles 
and  stories.  Mr.  Rounseville  sold  out  after  issuing  ten  numbers, 
and  the  purchaser  suspended  publication  after  the  twelfth  num- 
ber of  the  magazine.  The  founder's  belief  that  "  the  western 
people  were  able  and  willing  to  support  a  magazine  of  their  own  " 
had  not  materialized  in  cash.  Lack  of  attention  to  the  commer- 
cial side  of  the  enterprise  was  a  prime  cause  for  the  brevity  of  its 
life. 

The  name  of  Benjamin  F.  Taylor,  a  brilliant  literary  man,  is 
given  in  the  histories  of  Chicago  as  chief  editor  of  the  Lady's 
Western  Magazine.  This  periodical,  which  came  out  for  a  few 
months  in  1848,  was  in  imitation  of  several  "ladies'  magazines" 
published  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Taylor  was  a 
genuine  poet,  a  westerner  of  rare  genius.  From  the  forties  until 
after  the  great  Chicago  fire,  in  1871,  he  wrote  verses  which  first 
appeared  in  the  literary  periodicals,  and  also  the  newspapers,  of 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  387 

Chicago.  His  work  attracted  the  attention,  not  only  of  western 
readers,  but  also  of  the  literary  critics,  who  pronounced  it  to  be 
poetry  that  had  the  quality  of  real  literature.  But  Mr.  Taylor 
had  none  of  the  executive  ability  required  for  the  business  of 
editing-  and  publishing  a  periodical  of  any  kind ;  hence  the  short 
life  of  the  Lady's  Western  Magazine. 

In  contrast  with  the  direction  of  the  foregoing  magazines,  the 
strict  attention  to  business  in  the  management  of  the  Gem  of  the 
Prairie,  a  paper  devoted  to  literary  miscellany  and  information, 
stands  out  most  sharply.  Founded  before  them,  it  lived  after 
them.  It  endured  as  the  Gem  of  the  Prairie  for  nearly  eight 
years,  which  was  longer  than  any  other  early  periodical  of  pre- 
dominantly literary  turn  continued  to  exist.  "To  Please  Be 
Ours  "  was  the  motto  of  the  publishers  through  changing  owner- 
ships. The  proprietors  on  January  i,  1848,  John  E.  Wheeler  and 
Thomas  A.  Stewart,  said  editorially: 

We  mean  to,  and  we  believe  we  do,  give  the  people  who  buy  our  literary 
wares  their  money's  worth,  and  therefore  we  do  not  pay  them  so  poor  a  com- 
pliment as  to  call  them  patrons. 

Nevertheless,  they  expressed  themselves  as  "  not  satisfied  with 
mere  pecuniary  compensation,"  and  mentioned  those  "  more  subtle 
ties  connecting  with  the  World  of  the  Highest."  This  connection 
was  striven  for  in  departments  called  "  The  Muse,"  "  The  Story," 
"Miscellany,"  "Variety,"  and  "Local  Matters."  Bushnell  and 
Taylor  were  among  the  more  able  contributors.  Many  contribu- 
tions came  from  those  whose  chief  interest  in  life  evidently  was 
something  other  than  letters.  Not  a  few  stories  were  selected 
from  the  magazines  of  the  East  and  of  England.  The  depart- 
ment called  "  Miscellany  "  was  typical  of  the  channels  for  literary 
flow  provided  by  all  kinds  of  newspapers  and  periodicals  in  the 
era  of  American  journalism  prior  to  that  of  specialization.  It 
contained  bits  of  prose  and  verse  culled  miscellaneously  and 
thrown  together  in  a  kind  of  literary  salad.  This  combining  of 
appeals  to  the  desire  for  aesthetic  pleasure  through  the  use  of 
stories,  poems,  and  literary  miscellany,  and  to  the  desire  for 
knowledge  through  general  information  and  local  news,  was  an 
evidence  of  business  sagacity  on  the  part  of  the  publishers. 


388  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

In  order  to  meet  a  growing  demand  for  news  alone,  in  1847 
the  proprietors  established  the  Chicago  Daily  Tribune,  as  an  off- 
shoot to  the  Gem  of  the  Prairie.  They  continued  the  Gem  of  the 
Prairie  as  a  literary  miscellany  until  1852.  By  that  time  the 
offshoot  had  become  bigger  than  the  original  trunk.  The  Gem 
was  changed  from  a  week-day  weekly  to  a  Sunday  weekly,  and  its 
name  became  the  Chicago  Sunday  Tribune.  The  idea  of  publish- 
ing a  secular  weekly  to  appear  on  Sunday  had  been  gaining 
ground,  though  slowly,  since  the  founding  of  the  Sunday  Morn- 
ing Atlas  at  New  York  in  1838.  Publishers  must  aim  to  catch 
readers  during  their  hours  of  leisure.  These  Sunday  weeklies, 
though  largely  literary,  were  one  factor  in  the  development  of 
the  Sunday  dailies  of  today  devoted  primarily  to  news.  The  first 
exclusively  Sunday  paper  to  appear  in  Chicago  came  out  in  1856. 
It  was  the  Sunday  Vacuna,  named  from  the  goddess  of  rural 
leisure.  The  first  exclusively  Sunday  paper  of  any  permanence, 
according  to  the  historian  Andreas,  came  out  in  the  spring  of 
1857.  It  was  the  Sunday  Leader,  and  had  able  men  connected 
with  it.  Among  them  were  Bushnell,  and  Andrew  Shuman  and 
Rev.  A.  C.  Barry,  who  turned  off  a  department  called  "  Whittlings 
from  the  Chimney  Comer."  But  neither  of  these  exclusively 
Sunday  papers  lasted  long.  Without  a  doubt,  the  competition  of 
the  Chicago  Sunday  Tribune  was  too  strong. 

Up  to  the  exciting  days  of  the  Civil  War,  however,  there  was 
a  strong  conviction  on  the  part  of  substantial,  church-going  citi- 
zens that  Sunday  papers  should  not  be  read.  But  with  their 
hearts  burning  for  the  success  of  the  northern  cause,  and  aching 
for  loved  sons  at  the  front,  the  first  demand  of  every  man  and 
woman,  on  Sunday  as  on  a  week  day,  was  for  news.  This  was 
supplied  and  the  habit  of  reading  news  on  Sunday  was  begun. 
It  has  grown  since  then,  and  today  the  first  appeal  of  the  Sunday 
edition  of  a  daily  paper  is  the  appeal  of  news.  Yet  in  the  supple- 
ments of  the  Chicago  Sunday  Tribune  today,  containing  stories, 
comic  pictures,  "Worker's  Magazine"  features,  and  miscellane- 
ous reading,  one  can  see  the  outgrowth  of  the  old  Gem  of  the 
Prairie.  The  development  of  those  pages  in  the  Chicago  Sunday 
Tribune  which  broadly  may  be  classed  as  literary  in  character  is 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  38Q 

typical  of  morning  dailies  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere.  This  type 
of  growth  has  reached  its  highest  form  of  specialization,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  in  the  Sunday  Magazine  of  the  Chicago  Record- 
Herald,  and  newspapers  of  other  cities  associated  in  its  publica- 
tion. Incidentally,  the  points  about  the  course  of  development  in 
the  Gem  of  the  Prairie  and  the  Chicago  Sunday  Tribune  show, 
in  outline,  the  history  of  the  only  periodical  of  a  literary  char- 
acter established  in  prairie  days  which  has  continued  in  any  form 
and  retained  such  character  to  the  present  time.  The  Prairie 
Farmer,  established  in  1841,  has  altogether  lost  its  literary  flavor, 
although  it  has  retained  its  name  and  identity,  and  has  become  a 
highly  specialized  paper  of  agricultural  technique. 

In  January  of  the  year  when  the  Gem  of  the  Prairie  lost  its 
original  name,  the  Literary  Budget,  which  grew  into  a  journal 
of  the  same  type,  made  its  first  appearance.  The  establishment 
of  the  Literary  Budget  gives  the  first  example  of  a  phenomenon 
which  has  frequently  appeared  in  Chicago  publishing.  This  may 
accurately  be  termed  "  engraftment."  And  "  engraftment "  may 
be  defined  as  the  dependence  of  one  interest  upon  another  previ- 
ously established.  W.  W.  Dannenhower,  the  "  editor  and  proprie- 
tor" from  the  first  flash  to  the  snuffing  out  of  this  publication, 
was  an  old-fashioned  bookseller.  At  his  bookstore  in  Lake  Street 
he  gave  counsel  tO'  his  patrons  and  helped  to  set  the  literary 
fashions  for  the  commmunity.  He  established  the  Literary 
Budget  as  a  medium  in  which  to  advertise  books  and  periodicals. 
For  seven  numbers  it  appeared  as  a  monthly.  It  then  grew  into 
a  weekly  literary  journal  of  distinct  merit,  and  as  such  was  even 
more  effective  as  an  aid  in  selling  books.  And  by  the  increase  of 
book  business  the  periodical  was  helped. 

The  character  of  the  journal  as  a  literary  miscellany  is  shown 
by  the  frequent  appearance  of  noms  de  plume  —  "Paulina," 
"Katy  Darling,"  and  "Daisy  Poet."  It  is  said  by  the  early  his- 
torians that  the  first  music  ever  printed  from  movable  type 
appeared  in  this  paper.  Each  issue  contained  a  page  or  two  of 
printed  music.  To  accompany  some  of  this,  Benjamin  F.  Taylor, 
who  was  a  corresponding  editor,  wrote  verses.  T.  Herbert 
Whipple,  another  of  these  editors,  wrote  for  the  Literary  Budget 


390  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

an  original  "  nouvellette  "  entitled  "  Ethzelda ;  or,  Sunbeams  and 
Shadows:  A  Tale  of  the  Prairie  Land  as  it  Was,"  which  was 
afterward  published  in  covers  by  Rufus  Blanchard.  On  every 
page  the  Literary  Budget  tried  to  give  that  "  marked  and  original 
literature  of  its  own  "  which  Mr.  Dannenhower  had  "  dipped  his 
nib  in  ink  "  to  declare  the  West  should  have. 

After  two  years  and  a  half  of  editing,  Mr.  Dannenhower 
deserted  literature  for  politics.  In  the  summer  of  1855  ^e  became 
state  leader  of  the  "Native  American"  or  "Know-Nothing" 
party,  which  had  during  the  year  preceding  carried  two  eastern 
commonwealths,  and  had  shown  strength  in  the  middle  states. 
He  announced  that  the  Budget  would  "  close  its  existence,"  that 
he  would  "  launch  his  bark  "  once  more,  and  that  his  numerous 
readers  would  receive  the  Weekly  Native  Citizen.  As  a  spokes- 
man of  the  reaction  against  the  immigration  due  to  the  Irish 
famine  and  the  continental  revolutions  of  1848  and  1849,  he 
wrote  vehemently.    With  the  Budget's  last  breath,  he  said : 

We  trust  that  our  future  exertions  will  be  such  as  to  exemplify  to  the 
world  that  the  pure  fire  of  American  sentiment  is  sweeping  over  our  vast 
prairies ;    that  hereafter  America  shall  and  must  be  governed  by  Americans. 

There  was  not  a  sigh  for  the  literature  of  the  West.  We  shall  see 
how  minutely  history  repeated  itself  —  in  the  periodical  America 
four  decades  later. 

Sloan's  Garden  City,  another  literary  miscellany,  was  started 
as  a  graft,  in  the  original  sense  of  that  word.  Walter  B.  Sloan, 
the  publisher,  was  a  vender  of  patent  medicines  —  "Sloan's 
Remedies"  —  and  had  advertised  in  the  Gem  of  the  Prairie.  In 
the  first  few  numbers  of  his  own  periodical  he  printed  a  "  Sloan's 
Column,"  which  told  the  great  merits  of  "  Sloan's  Family  Oint- 
ment," "  Sloan's  Instant  Relief,"  "  Sloan's  Horse  Ointment,"  and 
"  Sloan's  Life  Syrup."  Later  Oscar  B.  Sloan,  a  son,  became 
editor.  The  patent-medicine  notices  disappeared.  The  periodical 
became  a  pro-western  literary  organ  of  genuine  merit,  having, 
however,  a  trend  toward  the  family-story  type  of  literary  appeal. 
In  1854  it  was  merged  with  the  People's  Paper  of  Boston,  which 
lived  until  1870.  But  throughout  its  last  years  it  contained  only  a 
few  advertising  notices,  the  subscription  price  of  $2  a  year  afford- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  391 

ing  sufficient  revenue.  The  history  of  this  periodical  has  interest, 
however,  chiefly  on  account  of  its  origin  in  advertising. 

The  Chicago  Magazine:  The  West  as  it  Is,  the  literary- 
historical  magazine  of  highest  tone,  expressed  the  pioneer  senti- 
ment on  advertising.    In  the  second  number,  April,  1857,  it  said: 

We  respond  to  the  wish  of  a  contemporary,  that  we  might  be  able  to  dis- 
pense with  this  avenue  of  pubHc  patronage.  But  at  present  the  law  of  neces- 
sity must  overrule  the  law  of  taste. 

As  in  the  other  early  periodicals,  the  only  advertisements  in  this 
magazine  were  those  of  local  firms,  including  a  "  Business  Direc- 
tory," and  those  of  the  railroads.  The  well-deserved  price  of  this 
magazine  was  25  cents  a  copy.  And  the  circulation  was  "  all  that 
the  publishers  asked." 

The  publishers  looked  for  another  source  of  revenue  in  their 
illustrations.  The  magazine  was  profusely  and  beautifully  illus- 
trated. The  cuts,  portraits,  and  pictures  of  buildings  and  towns 
were  made  from  daguerreotypes.  In  presenting  their  "  true  pic- 
ture of  the  West,"  the  proprietors  considered  it  their  first  duty 
"to  daguerreotype"  the  towns  and  the  leading  citizens.  This 
was  done  at  great  expense.  But  in  their  second  number  the  pub- 
lishers complained  that  no  pecuniary  aid  had  been  received  from 
that  class  of  citizens  whom  they  had  undertaken  to  daguerreotype 
—  the  long-resident,  wealthy  and  prominent  men.  They  also 
expressed  disappointment  because  the  towns  written  up  were  slow 
to  respond.  It  was  almost  a  sacrifice  of  the  dignity  of  this  fine 
magazine  thus  to  expect  revenue  from  articles  bordering  close 
upon  that  species  known  among  publishers  as  "  write-ups." 
Write-up  schemes,  some  of  them  really  hold-up  schemes,  have 
caused  the  disrepute,  decline,  and  death  of  not  a  few  publishing 
ventures  in  Chicago,  as  elsewhere.  The  proprietors  of  the  Chi- 
cago Magazine:  The  West  as  it  Is,  however,  did  not  solicit  pay- 
ments for  its  excellent  biographical  and  historical  sketches  in 
advance.  They  merely  voiced  disappointment  that  the  publication 
of  such  articles  had  not  met  with  recognition  in  the  fonn  of  the 
cash  the  magazine  so  much  needed. 

This  magazine  was  founded  by  and  published  for  the 
Mechanics'  Institute.    It  was  engrafted  on  a  culture  agency.    The 


392  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Mechanics'  Institute  was  an  organization  for  night  study,  which 
brought  lyceum  lecturers  to  the  city  and  estabhshed  a  hbrary. 
One  object  in  founding  the  magazine  was  to  secure  exchanges  for 
this  Hbrary  gratis.  The  serious  money  panic  of  1857  in  Chicago 
embarrassed  the  institute,  and  further  hurt  the  magazine's  circu- 
lation. In  John  Gager  &  Co.,  publishers  of  maps,  the  magazine 
had  able  business  managers.  Zebina  Eastman,  the  editor,  was  a 
distinguished  lawyer  as  well  as  writer.  But  he  was  a  prominent 
abolitionist;  and  his  interest  in  political  affairs  may  have  taken 
some  energy  from  his  literary  efforts. 

An  outside  passage  on  "  the  world's  literary  omnibus  "  was  all 
they  asked  in  March.  In  April  they  announced  that  the  magazine 
had  conquered  for  itself  a  place  in  the  literary  omnibus.  The  May 
and  June  numbers  were  late  in  coming  out.  The  July  number 
was  omitted.  The  August  number  was  the  fifth  and  last. 
Andreas,  the  historian  of  Chicago,  says  the  failure  was  a  great 
loss  to  the  literary  interests  of  the  cicy. 

The  last  of  the  prairie-day  periodicals  were  brought  out  under 
the  editorship  of  James  Grant  Wilson,  then  a  young  pioneer  mak- 
ing his  literary  debut  at  Chicago;  now,  in  1905,  with  more  than 
three-score  years  and  ten  to  his  credit,  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
Authors'  Club,  Century  Association,  and  other  circles  of  literary 
men  at  New  York.  He  was  the  editor  of  two  literary  periodicals 
which  closed  the  pioneer  period.  With  a  literary  bent  inherited 
from  his  father,  a  poet-publisher,  and  an  educational  equipment 
secured  at  College  Hill,  Poughkeepsie,  Mr.  Wilson  took  Horace 
Greeley's  advice  to  young  men,  and  came  west  in  1857.  Andreas 
in  his  History  of  Chicago,  1884,  says,  on  p.  41 1  of  Vol.  I :  "In 
March,  1857,  James  Grant  Wilson,  editor  (Carney  and  Wilson, 
publishers),  began  the  publication  of  a  monthly  magazine  desig- 
nated the  Chicago  Examiner,  devoted  to  literature,  general  and 
church  matters."  In  a  letter  written  October  9,  1905,  Mr.  Wilson 
informs  us  that  this  is  an  error,  saying:  "The  title  Chicago 
Examiner  is  new  to  me,  and  I  think  no  paper  or  periodical  could 
have  appeared  at  that  period  without  my  knowledge." 

In  April,  1857,  however,  Mr.  Wilson,  as  sole  editor  and  pro- 
prietor, founded  a  rather  enduring  journal,  the  Chicago  Record. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  393 

In  an  introductory  editorial  salutation  he  called  attention  to  the 
springtime  advent  of  the  birds,  and  asked  for  this  journal  a  wel- 
come like  that  given  to  the  April  songsters.  With  artistic  Old 
English  lettering  in  its  title,  the  Chicago  Record  was  consecrated 
to  literature  and  the  arts,  and,  although  conducted  by  a  layman, 
was  also  "  devoted  to  the  church."  It  was  an  example  of  engraft- 
ing, the  literary  interest  being  made  dependent  on  the  interests  of 
the  Chicago  diocese  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church.  It  may 
perhaps  be  significant  that,  along  with  the  advertising  notices  of 
books  and  reading  which  it  contained,  there  were  advertisements 
of  stained-glass  windows.  The  contents  of  the  Record's  neatly 
printed  pages  were,  however,  distinctly  literary  in  character,  and 
of  excellent  quality,  having  a  polish  which  the  news  oi  the  Epis- 
copal church  only  helped  to  emphasize,  as  one  can  readily  see  on 
looking  at  the  file  which  the  founder  presented  to  the  Chicago 
Historical  Society.  The  articles  were  written  in  pleasing  essay 
style.  The  editor  himself  contributed  "Wanderings  in  Europe," 
narrative  accounts  of  experiences  in  the  summer  of  1855. 
Another  series  of  papers  told  of  "  Painters  and  Their  Works  "  in 
a  manner  that  was  interesting,  although  the  journal  had  no  illus- 
trations. Poetry  and  "miscellanea"  were  interspersed.  Among 
the  poems  "  Written  for  the  Record"  were  several  by  Benjamin  F. 
Taylor;  and  of  those  evidently  reprinted  were  many  from  the 
pen  of  William  Cullen  Bryant.  All  of  the  literary  periodicals  of 
the  pioneer  period,  excepting  the  Chicago  Magazine:  The  West 
as  it  Is,  which  was  undertaken  contemporaneously  with  Mr.  Wil- 
son's first  effort  in  March,  1857,  had  already  died,  or  else  lost 
their  character  and  identity,  by  the  time  of  his  arrival.  There- 
fore, General  Wilson  is  under  the  impression  that  the  Chicago 
Record  "  was  the  first  literary  periodical  to  appear  in  Chicago." 

While  still  bringing  out  the  Chicago  Record,  Mr.  Wilson 
became  the  editor  of  the  very  best  magazine  among  those  which 
have  left  merely  first-number  mementoes  in  the  library  of  the 
Chicago  Historical  Society.  This  was  the  Northwestern  Quar- 
terly Magazine,  a  volume  of  104  pages  in  thick  paper  cover, 
which  was  published  by  Rufus  Blanchard,  the  cartographer  and 
historian  whose  death  occurred  in  1904.     It  was  a  heavy  maga- 


394  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

zine  of  the  North  American  Review  type,  the  most  ambitious  of 
the  kind  ever  attempted  in  Chicago,  and  quite  pretentious  for  so 
early  a  date  as  October,  1858.  Mr.  Blanchard,  in  a  conservative 
announcement  on  the  last  page,  said : 

On  the  issue  of  the  pioneer  number  of  this  magazine  the  publisher  would 
beg  leave  to  state  that  he  is  as  well  aware  that  no  high  pretensions  can  sustain 
a  feeble  attempt,  as  that  a  worthy  effort  would  be  successful  without  them. 
The  Northwestern  Quarterly  is  now  before  the  tribunal  of  public  opinion  to 
stand  or  fall  as  its  merits  shall  determine. 

In  the  course  of  telling  what  would  be  the  aims  of  the  magazine, 
he  said  "  the  broad  fields  of  literature  "  were  to  be  traversed,  and 
"  the  progress  of  fine  arts  to  be  traced." 

The  contributions  which  had  been  selected  by  his  editor  were 
printed  without  authors'  signatures  attached,  but  were  of  high 
character  both  as  to  critical  insight  and  literary  style.  Typical 
articles  in  the  number  bore  the  following  titles :  "  The  North- 
west," "  Padilla,"  "  A  Trick  of  Fortune,"  "  The  Home  of  Robert 
Burns,"  "The  Broken  Pitcher,"  "About  Painters  and  Their 
Works,"  "  Puns  and  Punsters,"  and  "  The  Atlantic  Telegraph." 
The  "  Literary  Notices  "  contained  a  review  of  Tit  comb's  Letters 
to  Young  People.  Three  local  book  stores,  including  "  the  largest 
book-house  in  the  Northwest,"  were  represented  by  full-page 
advertisements  of  a  character  in  keeping  with  the  literary  merit 
of  the  periodical,  for  which  the  booksellers  thus  signified  their 
approval.  General  Wilson  cherishes  many  recollections  of  the 
Northwestern  Quarterly.  Being  president  of  the  Biographical 
Society  in  New  York,  and  the  author  of  various  works  on 
memorabilia,  historical  recollections  are  his  great  delight. 
Among  reminiscences  concerning  the  Northzvestern  Quarterly 
Magazine,  the  most  pleasing,  told  in  his  own  words,  is  as  follows : 

Both  Washington  Irving  and  James  K.  Paulding,  and  also  William 
Cullen  Bryant,  in  letters  to  the  editor,  commended  it,  Paulding  saying  it  was 
"  the  best  first  number  of  any  magazine  ever  published  in  this  country." 

But  although  Mr.  Wilson  had  the  material  for  a  second  number 
in  proof,  it  never  was  published.  And  this  was  not  because  either 
the  "  high  pretensions  "  mentioned  by  the  publisher  or  contribu- 
tions of  genuine  merit  were  lacking.     Mr.  Blanchard  was  over- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  395 

taken  by  financial  troubles  in  his  chief  business  of  map-publishing ; 
so  the  magazine  was  brought  to  a  sudden  end,  and  sent  to  the 
oblivion  of  ephemeral  publications. 

Mr.  Wilson,  however,  continued  the  editing  and  publishing  of 
the  Chicago  Record  each  month.  This  journal  lived,  under  his 
fostering  care,  for  five  full  years,  until  March,  1862,  when  it  was 
purchased  by  a  clergyman,  through  whose  literary  ministrations 
it  lasted  only  a  brief  period  longer.  In  "  A  Word  at  Parting  " 
Mr.  Wilson  said  of  the  Chicago  Record: 

It  was  the  pioneer  paper  of  its  character  in  the  Northwest,  and  various 
were  the  expressions  in  regard  to  its  success : 

"  Some  said,  Print  it,  others  said,  Not  so ; 
Some  said,  It  might  do  good;   others  said,  No." 
It  has  been  a  success  —  we  humbly  trust  it  has   done  some  good.     Other 
demands  upon  our  time  compel  us  to  relinquish,  most  reluctantly,  a  post  that 
we  have  endeavored  to  fill  to  the  best  of  our  ability. 

The  other  demands,  mentioned  but  not  described  in  this  edi- 
torial valedictory,  were  those  felt  by  all  men  at  the  time  in 
response  to  the  nation's  call  for  volunteers.  Mr.  Wilson  quite 
literally  left  the  pen  for  the  sword.  He  entered  the  Union  army 
as  a  major  in  the  Fifteenth  Illinois  Cavalry,  served  in  the  Vicks- 
burgh  campaign,  and  resigned  as  a  brigadier-general  in  1865. 
While  in  the  war.  General  Wilson  absorbed  the  material  for  his 
printed  addresses  on  Lincoln  and  Grant,  and  was  led  on  into  the 
literary  work  which  he  has  since  done  continuously  in  New  York, 
his  last  book,  Thackeray  in  the  United  States,  having  come  out  in 
1903.  But  it  was  the  war  which  ended  his  training-school  days 
in  letters  at  periodical  editing  and  publishing  in  pioneer  Chicago. 

The  war  put  a  temporary  stop  to  the  founding  of  literary 
periodicals.  As  we  have  already  seen,  at  least  one  publication  of 
literary  interest  was  begun  in  each  year  after  1841  until  1858. 
And  since  the  war,  new  ones  have  sprung  up  every  year.  But 
between  1858  and  the  end  of  the  war  in  1865,  only  one  periodical 
of  literary  character  was  attempted  in  Chicago.  Even  that  one 
was  first  announced  in  a  prospectus  issued  at  Washington,  D.  C, 
and  it  proved  to  be  a  direct  engraftment  on  the  national  interest 
in  the  war.    This  unique  bit  of  war-time  literary  effort  bore  as  its 


396  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

name  the  words  National  Banner.  No.  i  of  Vol.  I,  having  a 
Chicago  imprint,  appeared  in  May,  1862;  the  last  number  issued 
at  Chicago  came  out  in  December  of  that  year;  and  then  the 
headquarters  were  again  located  in  its  place  of  origin  at  the 
national  capital. 

The  National  Banner  was  a  sixteen-page  journal  "  devoted 
to  art,  literature,  music,  general  intelligence,  and  the  country." 
The  objects  of  the  venture,  as  framed  more  fully  by  Miss  Delphine 
P.  Baker,  the  proprietor,  and  proclaimed  through  a  standing 
announcement,  were  in  part,  as  follows : 

First,  to  create  a  patriotic  fund  for  the  relief  of  disabled  soldiers  and  their 
families;  second,  to  diflfuse  a  high-toned  moral  literature  throughout  the  land; 
and,  third,  to  bind  with  the  golden  chain  of  love  all  hearts  together  in  one 
grand,  glorious  national  cause. 

The  National  Banner  held  out  a  novel  inducement  to  prospective 
subscribers  in  the  form  of  a  promise  that  a  good  part  of  their 
payments  would  be  turned  over  directly  to  "the  patriotic  fund." 
Still,  the  dominant  interest  aroused  by  the  contents  of  the  peri- 
odical was  of  a  literary  nature.  A  leading  feature  from  month 
to  month  was  a  continued  story  entitled  "  Olula :  A  Romance  of 
the  West."  Among  the  contributors  mentioned,  in  announce- 
ments frequently  made,  were  George  D.  Prentice,  Benjamin  F. 
Taylor,  James  Grant  Wilson,  Horace  Greeley,  James  W.  Shea- 
han,  and  William  Mathews.  Although  sounding  the  new  national 
note,  the  periodical  paraded  its  contributions  from  "the  most 
eminent  northwestern  clergymen,"  and  paid  special  attention  to 
literary  efforts  designed  for  the  western  section  of  the  country. 

II.     PERIODICAL  LITERATURE  FOLLOWING  THE  WAR 

"  Born  of  the  prairie  and  the  wave  —  the  blue  sea  and  the  green  — 
A  city  of  the  Occident,  Chicago  lay  between. 

"  I  hear  the  tramp  of  multitudes  who  said  the  map  was  wrong  — 
They  drew  the  net  of  longitude  and  brought  it  right  along, 
And  swung  a  great  meridian  line  across  the  Foundling's  breast, 
And  the  city  of  the  Occident  was  neither  East  nor  West." 

— Benj.  F.  Taylor,  in  the  Lakeside  Monthly,  October,  1873. 

The  effect  of  the  Civil  War  in  lessening  sectional  antagonism 
throughout  the  North,  especially  the  sectionalism  of  West  versus 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  397 

East,  was  reflected  in  the  literary  periodicals  of  Chicago.  This 
impulse  toward  the  national  standpoint  showed  itself  in  the 
magazines  and  journals  undertaken  in  the  period  between  1865 
and  the  great  fire  of  1871.  There  was  also  the  influence  of  an 
intensified  local  spirit.  Chicago  was  growing  like  an  adolescent 
giant.  The  population  had  increased  from  a  little  more  than 
100,000  in  i860  to  over  200,000  in  1866,  and  by  1870  it  was 
more  than  300,000.  This  growth  was  matched  by  a  buoyant 
movement  in  commerce  and  industry.  A  flood  of  energy  which 
had  been  diverted  to  the  war  was  directed  anew  to  these  channels. 
The  name  "  Chicago  "  appeared  on  thirteen  periodicals  of  literary 
appeal  in  the  late  sixties  and  early  seventies.  The  Chicagoan,  a 
literary  weekly  coming  out  on  Saturdays  in  the  years  1868  and 
1869,  was  one  of  the  best  of  these.  But  in  tracing  development, 
the  beginning  of  a  tendency  toward  nationalization  is  more  impor- 
tant. It  is  to  be  found  in  the  magazines  that  were  published  east 
as  well  as  west. 

The  establishment  of  agencies  for  distributing  periodicals  and 
newspapers  aided  in  widening  their  scope.  Mr.  John  R.  Walsh 
founded  the  Western  News  Co.  in  1866.  This  machine  for  Middle 
West  distribution  of  periodic  publications  was  built  upon  the 
growing  web  of  railway  lines  centered  in  Chicago.  The  Western 
News  Co.  became  an  organic  part  of  the  American  News  Co., 
which  had  been  established  in  New  York  ten  years  earlier.  Like 
every  branch  agency  at  a  subcenter,  the  Western  News  Co. 
proved  a  great  aid  to  the  magazines  of  New  York  in  securing 
national  circulation.  Mr.  Walsh  held  then,  as  he  does  today,  in 
1905,  that  there  can  be  only  one  literary  center  in  a  country.  He 
cites  the  shifting  of  literary  production  from  Edinburgh  to  Lon- 
don, in  Great  Britain's  experience,  as  evidence.  At  any  rate,  but 
few  promoters  of  western  publishing  ventures  have  had  capital 
enough  to  send  out  through  the  news  company,  for  display  at  the 
newsstands,  many  copies  which  might  be  returned  unsold.  The 
news  company  holds  back  the  collections  on  three  issues  of  a  new 
periodical  as  a  guarantee  that  the  publishers  will  fulfil  their  agree- 
ment to  take  back  copies  not  sold.  Nevertheless,  Chicago  pub- 
lishers, except  those  of  the  present  decade,  have  complained  that 


UNfVERSiTY 

OF 

-fFCRNV^ 


398  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

the  Western  News  Co.  has  not  been  an  aid  in  estabHshing  west- 
ern literary  periodicals. 

Within  the  five  years  following  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  a 
periodical  was  started  in  Chicago  which  stands  today  as  the  most 
notable  in  the  city's  literary  history.  This  was  a  monthly  maga- 
zine which,  crudely  begun  as  the  Western  Monthly,  became  the 
classic  Lakeside  Monthly.  Of  all  the  periodicals  undertaken  in 
Chicago,  the  Lakeside  Monthly  remains  the  one  most  distinctive 
in  unalloyed  literary  appeal,  the  one  most  chaste  and  finished  in 
form.    Its  history  is  rich  in  significance. 

In  its  first  number  the  Western  Monthly  announced  that  it 
was  "  intended  to  be  purely  an  institution  of  the  West."  The 
western  tocsin  was  again  sounded  lustily  as  in  the  Western 
Magazine  of  prairie  days.  The  worth  of  the  magazines  of  the 
East  during  the  preceding  decades  in  affording  an  outlet  for 
eastern  writers,  and  thereby  placing  American  literature  side  by 
side  with  the  best  of  the  Old  World,  was  loudly  praised ;  but,  said 
the  announcement, 

the  West,  with  her  vast  resources,  her  intellectual  men  and  growing  genius, 
is  not  represented  by  any  magazine  whose  mission  is  to  explore  the  fields  of 
literature  and  gather  the  ripe  fruits  of  her  pioneer  talent. 

It  was  declared  that  western  writers  looked  with  an  "  unbecoming 
awe  "  upon  those  of  the  East,  and  "  feared  to  compete  with  them 
in  the  literary  arena  as  then  established."  The  fault  was  laid  at 
the  door  of  the  West  for  not  publishing  a  magazine  of  its  own. 
Hence  the  advent  of  the  Western  Monthly  and  the  concluding 
words : 

We  believe  the  proverbial  go-aheaditiveness  of  the  western  people  will  be 
demonstrated  in  literary  as  well  as  commercial  matters,  now  that  the  oppor- 
tunity is  presented. 

All  this  appeared  in  the  number  of  January,  1869. 

Not  long  before  that  time,  Mr.  Francis  Fisher  Browne,  truly 
a  pioneer  of  American  culture  then  and  today,  arrived  in  Chicago, 
coming  from  Buffalo  and  the  East,  by  steamer  on  the  lakes.  Mr. 
Browne  had  served  in  the  Civil  War  with  a  Massachusetts  regi- 
ment ;  and,  having  seen  many  men  from  many  sections  marching 
to  the  nation's  common  battlefields,  he  had  come  out  of  the  war 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  399 

with  an  enlarged  experience  and  a  broadened  point  of  view. 
As  a  boy,  he  had  learned  the  printer's  trade  in  his  father's  news- 
paper office,  thus  acquiring  knowledge  of  the  aid  that  typographic 
art  can  give  to  literary  form.  Like  many  literary  men,  he  had 
also  studied  law  —  first  in  an  office  at  Rochester,  New  York,  and 
then  at  the  University  of  Michigan.  Ever  since  his  boyhood  days 
in  the  newspaper  office  and  in  a  New  England  high  school,  he 
had,  however,  been  keenly  interested  in  letters.  After  locating  in 
Chicago,  his  tastes  again  turned  to  them.  His  alert  eye  saw 
possibilities  in  the  Western  Monthly;  and,  after  three  or  four 
numbers  had  been  published,  he  purchased  an  interest  in  the 
magazine  and  joined  the  projector  of  it,  Mr.  H.  V.  Reed,  in  its 
management.  After  a  time  Mr.  Reed  withdrew  from  the  enter- 
prise, and  Mr.  Browne  became  its  sole  director. 

The  beginning  of  Mr.  Browne's  work  in  the  management  of 
the  magazine  was  marked  by  immediate  improvement  in  its  style 
and  character.  The  typographical  dress  of  the  periodical  was 
changed,  and  its  appearance  became  at  once  more  dignified  and 
elegant.  Biographical  features  were  dropped  out,  and  its  appeal 
became  purely  literary.  The  interest  in  form  and  subject-matter 
was  not  then,  or  afterward,  given  auxiliary  strength  by  the  use 
of  illustrations.  But  the  typography  became  so  nearly  perfect 
that  the  Inland  Printer  has  declared  it  to  have  been  the  best  in  any 
Chicago  periodical  excepting  only  that  influential  journal  of 
literary  criticism,  the  Dial,  which  Mr.  Browne  himself  established 
later. 

The  change  in  the  name  of  the  periodical  was  probably  the 
most  typical  single  act  of  a  Chicago  publisher  during  the  post- 
bellum  period.  The  adjective  "western"  in  a  magazine  title 
bespoke  something  provincial,  something  narrow  and  restricted  in 
aim  and  scope.  Other  publishers  evidently  felt  this.  Besides  the 
Western  Monthly,  only  three  Chicago  literary  periodicals  started 
in  these  years  contained  the  word  "  West "  in  their  names ;  and 
they  were  journals  of  a  low  literary  order.  A  broader  and  more 
inclusive  title  was  needed  to  make  the  magazine  expressive  of  the 
spirit  of  the  times.  A  study  of  its  files  and  of  the  history  of  the 
period  suggested  the  idea  that  the  editor  had  doubtless  gone 


400  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

through  an  interesting  personal  experience  in  creating  the  new 
name  thus  called  for  by  the  social  movements  following  the 
Civil  War. 

A  call  upon  Mr.  Browne  in  the  Dial  office  at  the  Fine  Arts 
Building  was  rewarded  with  a  vivid  narration  of  this  important 
incident.  Looking  out  over  the  green  space  bordering  Michigan 
Boulevard  to  the  great  blue  lake  in  the  distance,  Mr  Browne  con- 
sented to  give  his  recollections  of  the  transforming  of  the  West- 
ern Monthly  into  the  Lakeside  Monthly.  Soon  after  his  advent 
into  the  magazine,  he  felt  the  narrowness  of  the  word  "  western," 
and  began  feeling  for  a  name  which,  while  it  might  retain  the 
flavor  of  locality,  would  first  of  all  connote  a  wide  interest  in  the 
aesthetic.  The  title  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  had  some  such  con- 
notation. Mr.  Browne  devised  a  long  list  of  possibilities,  com- 
pounding words  to  suggest  beauty  and  fertility  —  the  lake  and  the 
land.  And  one  day,  in  1870,  he  struck  off  the  word  "Lakeside" 
—  a  name  which,  perhaps  because  it  so  clearly  mirrors  the  most 
beautiful  physical  feature  of  the  Chicago  environment,  has  become 
h.  popular  favorite  for  many  ambitious  enterprises.  For  its  first 
use  Mr.  Browne  chose  it  as  the  looked- for  title,  and  the  magazine 
became  the  Lakeside  Monthly. 

Under  its  new  name  the  magazine  made  rapid  advances  in 
influence  and  reputation,  so  that  it  became  the  nucleus  of  a  large 
publishing  and  printing  house  organized  in  1870  for  the  avowed 
purpose  of  making  Chicago  as  important  a  center  for  the  manu- 
facture of  book?  and  periodicals  as  it  had  already  become  for 
their  marketing  and  distribution.  The  magazine  gave  its  name 
to  the  new  house,  the  Lakeside  Publishing  and  Printing  Co.,  for 
which  it  became  the  literary  organ.  In  November,  1870,  it 
announced  editorially  that  the  Lakeside  Monthly  would  hold  such 
a  relation  to  this  company  "as  does  Harper's  Magazine  to  the 
great  publishing  house  of  Harper  Bros,  of  New  York."  The  new 
publishing  company  was  a  successor  to  the  magazine  company 
and  the  printing  firm  of  Church,  Goodman  &  Donnelly.  It 
started  with  a  capital  stock  of  $500,000,  and  had,  besides  the 
magazine  and  other  literary  interests,  a  large  and  well-equipped 
printing-plant.      It  also  erected  the  Lakeside   Building,   which, 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  401 

rebuilt,  still  stands  at  the  corner  of  Clark  and  Adams  Streets, 
materially  reminiscent  of  the  high  enterprise.  The  great  fire  of 
1 87 1  destroyed  the  new  building  and  seriously  crippled  the  busi- 
ness, so  that  book  and  magazine  publishing  in  Chicago  did  not 
then  assume  the  proportions  reasonably  promised  at  the  outset  of 
the  new  organization.  A  division  of  interests  was  made,  and 
from  that  time  on  the  sole  responsibility  of  the  magazine  rested 
with  Mr.  Browne. 

The  character  and  quality  of  the  Lakeside  became  notable, 
and  its  distinctive  literary  tone  became  pronounced,  editor  and 
contributors  seriously  striving  to  maintain  the  point  of  view  of 
the  creative  artist.  An  endeavor  was  made  to  present  the  con- 
tents in  such  form  as  to  interest  American  readers  not  only  resid- 
ing in  the  Middle  West,  but  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  also 
the  English-reading  lovers  of  beauty  residing  in  the  Old  World 
as  well.  This  outlook  was  from  a  height  which  no  previous 
periodical  in  Chicago  had  attained.  The  appeal  to  the  aesthetic 
interest  was  supplemented  with  an  appeal  to  the  interest  in  knowl- 
edge, through  the  publication  of  many  profound  articles  of  solid 
information.  A  scholarly  tone  resulted.  The  men  connected 
with  the  popular  and  sensational  magazines  today,  on  reading  the 
files  of  the  Lakeside,  are  inclined  to  ridicule  this  characteristic. 
They  call  it  didactic.  Such  didactics,  however,  served  to  empha- 
size the  fact  that  the  purely  literary  contributions  to  the  magazine 
were  measured  critically  by  a  standard  derived  from  classic 
literature. 

The  retention  of  a  decidedly  western  character  was  another 
marked  feature  of  the  Lakeside.  Mr.  Browne  tried  always  to  get 
material  that  was  indigenous,  racy  of  the  soil,  expressive  of  the 
fertility  and  virility  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  The  fiction,  poetry, 
and  essays  in  the  files  of  the  Lakeside  show  success  in  expression 
of  the  life  of  the  Midland  West.  In  the  Far  West  the  picturesque 
freshness  of  the  mountains  inspired  a  like  use  of  local  color  in 
Bret  Harte's  Overland  Monthly,  which  was  contemporary  with 
the  Lakeside  Monthly,  as  it  in  the  Middle  West  was  with  the 
Atlantic  Monthly  in  New  England.  Most  of  the  men  and  women 
who  wrote  for  the  Lakeside  lived  in  Chicago  and  the  Middle 


402  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

West,  although  some  were  from  the  South  and  a  few  from  the 
East.  Many  of  them  were  brought  out  by  the  Lakeside,  and 
much  in  their  first  manuscripts  was  rewritten  in  Mr.  Browne's 
office.  An  article  on  "  Literary  Chicago  "  in  the  New  England 
Magazine  of  February,   1893,  states  the  result,  by  saying  that 

The  Lakeside  Monthly  early  took  high  rank  among  the  first-class  literary 
magazines  of  the  country,  and  elicited  the  warmest  praise,  not  only  from 
American  organs  of  critical  opinion,  but  from  such  foreign  authorities  as  the 
Saturday  Review  and  la  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes. 

The  circulation,  according  to  the  newspaper  annuals,  reached 
9,000  in  1871,  10,000  the  next  year,  and  in  1873,  14,000,  its 
maximum.  While  the  bulk  of  this  was  in  Chicago's  supporting 
market,  west  and  northwest,  a  part  was  east  of  the  Alleghanies. 

The  pages  of  the  Lakeside,  with  their  portrayal  of  mid-western 
character,  proved  to  be  one  source  of  satisfaction  for  a  widespread 
desire  to  read  the  literature  of  locality  —  a  desire  which  was  one 
effect  of  the  war  and  the  growth  01  the  nation.  Before  that  time, 
publishers  in  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia  had  generally 
disregarded  western  subjects  and  western  authors.  The  few 
remaining  literary  workers  who  were  active  then  say  it  is  impos- 
sible for  the  present  generation  to  appreciate  the  indifference 
which  eastern  publishers  then  felt  for  the  West.  With  the  advent 
of  the  Lakeside,  Scribne/s  Monthly,  the  forerunner  of  the  present 
Century,  began  to  give  attention  to  western  subjects,  and  to  seek 
the  work  of  western  writers.  During  the  years  of  the  Lakeside's 
growth  other  eastern  publishers  began  to  glean  in  Mid-West 
fields,  and  the  competition  among  them  for  the  virile  western 
productions,  which  has  since  become  so  keen,  was  fairly  on  by  the 
time  the  magazine  had  reached  the  zenith  of  its  career. 

Such  an  influential  position  came  only  from  years  of  patient 
perseverance  and  indomitable  energy.  Unlike  the  publishers  of 
148  literary  ventures  of  various  orders  in  Chicago  lasting  only  a 
year  or  less,  Mr.  Browne  went  into  this  undertaking  prepared  to 
stay.  Although  loving  literature  for  its  own  sake,  he  knows  well 
its  commercial  side;  that  even  the  highest  grade  of  literary  out- 
put, like  grosser  wares,  must  be  marketed  as  merchandise.  Mr, 
Browne  was  prepared  to  carry  on  his  chosen  enterprise  with  the 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  403 

highest  literary  ideals,  but  with  practical  business  methods  for 
reaching  the  market  made  by  those  who  appreciate  the  higher 
literature.  The  recognition  of  merit  was  sought,  and  it  was  the 
recognition  of  such  an  effort  of  merit,  as  that  which  critics  say 
today  puts  the  Atlantic  Monthly  in  a  class  by  itself,  Mr.  Browne 
evidently  felt  that  this  policy,  if  followed  out  with  patient  devo- 
tion, was  bound  to  win  in  time ;  and  it  did  win  for  the  Lakeside,  in 
spite  of  business  changes  and  ordeals  by  fire  during  years  of  work 
and  waiting.  In  October,  1870,  the  Lakeside  Monthly  had  a  fore- 
taste of  fire,  from  flames  which,  though  confined  to  its  office, 
burned  up  an  entire  issue  just  off  the  press,  and  inflicted  other 
serious  damage.  Then,  in  October,  1871,  the  great  Chicago  con- 
flagration nearly  obliterated  the  magazine,  not  only  weakening 
the  new  publishing  house  which  had  grown  out  of  it,  but  redu- 
cing the  office  furniture  and  subscription  list  to  ashes.  But  the 
spirit  of  the  Lakeside  survived.  Mr.  Browne  passed  through  all 
this  undaunted.  The  magazine,  omitting  only  the  November  and 
December  issues,  went  on  its  way.  Not,  however,  until  its  fifth 
year,  in  1873,  did  it  reach  a  self-supporting  basis.  The  revenues 
were  chiefly  from  sales  and  subscriptions  at  35  cents  per  copy  and 
$4  a  year.  The  advertising  patronage  was  small,  in  comparison 
with  that  of  the  popular  magazines  of  today.  It  came  mainly 
from  local  merchants,  since  the  general  advertising  agencies  had 
merely  been  started  in  a  small  way  by  that  time. 

Nearly  all  of  this  advertising  support  and  40  per  cent,  of  the 
circulation  fell  off  in  the  fretful  times  following  the  "Black 
Friday"  of  the  Jay  Cooke  panic  toward  the  end  of  1873.  The 
struggle  had  been  hard,  the  strain  long  and  severe,  and  when,  on 
account  of  these  general  financial  conditions,  additional  resources 
of  capital  and  energy  were  called  for,  Mr.  Browne  broke  down, 
and,  in  the  spring  of  1874,  was  ordered  away  by  his  physician. 
As  sole  proprietor  and  editor,  Mr.  Browne  had  not  specialized 
the  establishment  sufficiently.  There  was  no  one  at  hand  trained 
to  take  his  place  either  in  business  management  or  in  editorial 
direction.  At  this  time  the  publishers  of  Scrihner's  Monthly 
made  a  proposal  for  consolidation,  which  was  a  unique  recognition 
of  Chicago  publishing  on  the  part  of  New  York  publishers.     But 


404  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

this  was  declined,  Mr.  Browne  deciding  that,  if  the  magazine 
must  die,  it  should  go  down  as  it  had  Hved  —  the  Lakeside 
Monthly.  In  February,  1874,  it  suspended  publication  —  a 
measure  of  necessity  which  at  the  time  was  thought  to  be  only 
temporary.  But  it  proved  otherwise;  and  thus  was  closed  the 
career  of  an  enterprise  in  periodical  literature  which,  in  many 
respects,  was  the  most  important  in  the  history  of  the  literary- 
interests  of  Chicago. 

A  publication  of  magazine  form,  generally  called  the  Chicago 
Magazine,  came  out  in  the  period  of  prosperity  following  the  war. 
Its  complete  name,  however,  was  the  Chicago  Magazine  of 
Fashion,  Music,  and  Home  Reading.  It  was  created  by  a  coterie 
of  fashionable  ladies.  Mrs.  M.  L.  Rayne,  who  today  contributes 
"  Fun  and  Philosophy "  to  the  editorial  page  of  the  Chicago 
Record-Herald,  was  the  editor  and  leading  spirit  in  the  company. 
This  magazine  was  the  jfirst  of  several  Chicago  periodicals 
designed  to  couple  an  interest  in  aesthetic  writing  with  the  aesthetic 
interest  in  dress.  Possibly  the  fashions  then  did  not  call  for 
tailor-made  gowns.  At  any  rate,  the  literary  style  of  the  poems, 
short  stories,  and  serials,  the  printed  trimming  for  the  substantial 
material  on  modes,  was  characterized  by  something  of  looseness. 
The  magazine  secured  a  circulation  of  3,000,  chiefly  local.  It 
first  appeared  in  1870;  numbers  in  the  file  of  the  Historical 
Society  run  to  1 872 ;  and  the  name  appears  in  newspaper  annuals 
until  1876.  • 

One  of  the  military  titles  used  by  boys  at  play  in  the  Civil 
War  time  was  stereotyped  on  the  cover  of  a  remarkable  journal 
of  juvenile  literature,  the  Little  Corporal.  This  little  periodical 
was  begun  in  Chicago  the  second  month  after  fighting  men  came, 
from  Appomattox,  to  their  homes  and  children.  The  Little  Cor- 
poral's slogan,  shown  in  the  files  for  1865  and  1866  at  the  His- 
torical Society's  library,  sounded  forth  as  follows :  "  Fighting 
against  Wrong,  and  for  the  Good  and  the  True  and  the  Beauti- 
ful." 

The  authors  of  the  periodical  resided  in  Evanston,  the 
suburban  center  of  culture.  Alfred  L.  Sewell,  of  the  Evanston 
Index,  was  the  publisher;  Mrs.  Emily  Huntington  Miller  was  the 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  405 

editor;  Miss  Frances  Willard  was  a  contributor.  The  Little 
Corporal  was  not,  however,  a  temperance  or  religious  organ. 
Nor  did  it  uphold  any  sectionalism  as  the  only  papers  for  children 
attempted  in  the  prairie  period  had  done.  There  had  been  two  of 
these,  one  in  each  decade  of  that  period.  The  first,  a  weekly 
attempted  by  Kiler  K.  Jones,  who  later  founded  the  Gem  of  the 
Prairie,  antedated  all  but  two  of  the  quasi-literary  periodicals  for 
adults  started  in  Chicago's  young  days,  being  begun  in  May, 
1843.  A  tattered  copy  of  its  last  number,  dated  July  26,  1843, 
which  is  one  of  the  Historical  Society's  curios,  contains,  besides 
the  pioneer  projector's  farewell  words  to  the  effect  that  he  had 
done  his  best  at  "  editor,  compositor,  pressman,  and  devil's  duty," 
the  original  prospectus.  Its  significant  line  is  this :  "  The  Youth's 
Gazette:  devoted  expressly  to  the  interests  of  the  youth  of  the 
West."  The  other  early  paper  for  children,  begun  at  Chicago  in 
1853,  and  lasting  only  a  short  time,  was  christened  the  Youth's 
Western  Banner.  But  in  1865  no  western  modifier  was  given  to 
the  name  of  the  Little  Corporal..  In  the  nationalizing  which 
marked  the  social  process  in  the  United  States  at  the  time,  it  was 
even  easier  to  find  common  ground  for  the  children  than  for  older 
people,  especially  when  the  ground  taken  was  the  universal  inter- 
est in  story.  The  paper,  a  monthly  in  journal  form,  was  filled 
with  secular,  juvenile  literature,  of  the  best  quality. 

The  Little  Corporal  became  permanent  by  accident.  It  was 
originally  published  for  the  United  States  Sanitary  Commission 
in  connection  with  a  fair.  But  it  proved  to  be  so  popular  and 
successful  that  it  was  continued,  enduring  for  an  entire  decade. 
It  quickly  attained  a  national  circulation,  being  the  first  periodical 
from  Chicago  to  secure  wide  attention,  and  the  first  juvenile  in  the 
country  to  be  read  by  children  everywhere.  It  was  the  forerunner 
of  St.  Nicholas,  which  magazine  was  established  at  New  York 
during  the  Little  Corporal's  sixth  year.  From  it  the  Youth's 
Companion,  though  established  long  before,  in  Boston,  made 
adaptations  which  have  promoted  the  popularity  of  that  paper. 

The  enormous  circulation  of  the  Little  Corporal  is  historic  in 
the  records  of  Chicago  publishing.  The  first  American  News- 
paper Directory,  issued  in  1869,  by  George  P.  Row  ell  &  Co.,  New 


4o6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

York,  rated  it  at  80,000.  But  in  the  recollections  of  Mr.  Francis 
F.  Browne,  Mr,  John  McGovern,  and  others  who  were  among  its 
readers,  the  Little  Corporal  is  credited  with  having  reached  a  cir- 
culation of  100,000  in  its  first  or  second  year. 

This  large  circulation  was  unhappily  the  cause  of  its  decline 
and  cessation.  The  price  of  subscription  for  twelve  monthly 
numbers  was  $1,  one  of  the  first  instances  of  low  prices  in  pub- 
lishing. But  the  thousands  and  thousands  of  subscribers  added 
to  Mr,  Sewell's  lists  did  not  bring  proportionate  additions  of 
thousands  of  dollars  from  advertisements.  In  periodical  pub- 
lishing the  unit  on  which  advertising  rates  are  based  is  each  1,000 
copies  per  issue.  And  for  each  of  the  added  units  of  circulation 
the  publisher  must  get  additional  revenue  from  his  advertising 
pages,  especially  if  he  is  publishing  at  popular  prices.  Mr,  Sewell, 
with  his  long  list  of  subscribers  in  hand,  found  himself  ahead  of 
the  times.  Advertising  had  not  yet  become  extensive  and  the 
first  source  of  success  in  business.  The  local  firms  which  gave 
him  advertising  notices  would  pay  only  small  sums;  for  they 
cared  to  reach  but  a  part  of  his  readers.  With  a  small  circulation 
these  sums  would  bring  a  profit;  but,  after  a  certain  point  was 
reached,  every  copy  demanded  was  printed  at  a  loss.  Everybody's 
Magazine,  of  New  York,  was  threatened  during  the  past  year,  on 
account  of  the  increase  in  circulation  caused  by  the  Lawson 
articles  on  "  Frenzied  Finance,"  with  a  similar  predicament,  but 
could  immediately  raise  the  selling  price  per  copy,  and  at  the 
expiration  of  advertising  contracts  secure  their  renewal  at  a 
higher  rate.  Many  a  Chicago  publisher  since  Mr.  Sewell's  day 
has  sighed  for  such  a  circulation. 

A  squad  of  juvenile  publications,  in  imitation  of  the  Little 
Corporal,  sprang  into  existence.  Fifteen  such  were  started 
between  1865  and  1871.  Eight  of  these  were  not  revived  after 
the  fire,  and  all  except  the  Little  Corporal  and  two  others  were 
very  short-lived.  Little  Folks,  begim  in  1869,  lasted  until  1877. 
This  was  advertised  as  a  monthly  of  "  illustrated  juvenile  litera- 
ture," but  was  sold  for  30  cents  a  year.  The  Young  Folks' 
Monthly,  undertaken  in  1870,  continued  until  1883.  An  adver- 
tisement in  a  newspaper  annual  for  1880  said  it  was  "a  live. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  407 

Sparkling,  illustrated  magazine  for  boys  and  girls,  and  older 
people  with  young  hearts,  containing  thirty-two  pages  of  illus- 
trations and  reading  matter  best  calculated  to  amuse  and  instruct 
the  young."  This  advertisement,  with  its  tone  of  commonness, 
has  a  meaning  for  this  essay.  It  helps  to  show  the  range  of  inter- 
est people  have  in  literary  productions,  from  the  classic  to  the 
common.  In  these  juveniles  we  readily  see  one  tendency  toward 
the  development  of  the  "  family-story  "  periodical  —  a  type  which 
not  long  after  this  period  became  well  known  to  the  printing  trade. 

Another  part  of  this  "  family-story "  line  of  specialization 
appeared  in  the  periodicals  for  adults.  Back  in  the  prairie  period 
some  of  the  pioneer  publishers  of  general  literary-miscellany 
periodicals  had  called  attention  to  the  "family  reading"  in  their 
columns,  and  had  emphasized  the  special  interest  it  had  for 
families  in  homes  on  the  farms.  But  in  1868  home  papers  with 
home  titles  made  their  first  appearance.  The  Home  Eclectic 
came  out,  and  continued  monthly  until  1870,  acquiring  only  a 
small  constituency.  The  Chicago  Western  Home  also  was  started, 
secured  20,000  subscribers  by  1870,  and  disappeared  in  the  dis- 
aster of  1871.  In  1869,  A.  N.  Kellogg,  the  inventor  of  "patent 
insides,"  the  printed  sheets  sent  to  country  newspapers  for  com- 
pletion with  local  items,  founded  the  Evening  Lamp.  This  is  a 
large  co-operative  newspaper,  printed  from  the  best  plate-matter 
of  the  A.  N.  Kellogg  Newspaper  Co.  It  is  filled  with  serials, 
stories,  sketches,  and  miscellaneous  matter  of  interest  and  of  fair 
quality.  It  is  sent  out  weekly  to  this  day.  Three  other  family 
fireside  papers  were  started  in  time  to  be  burned  out  by  the  fire. 

Chicago's  famous  holocaust  destroyed  the  files  of  some  maga- 
zines and  journals  from  the  earlier  period,  and  a  majority  of 
those  originated  after  the  war.  Many  periodicals  lived  only  long 
enough  for  their  names  to  be  put  into  the  newspaper  directories 
published  in  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  This  is  true  concern- 
ing not  a  few  of  the  306  in  the  bibliography  of  literary  publica- 
tions attempted  in  Chicago  up  to  1905,  compiled  during  the  course 
of  investigation  for  these  papers.  The  newspaper  annuals  are  the 
one  source  of  information  about  them.  And  at  least  one  such 
directory  for  every  year  since  the  first  was  brought  out,  has  been 


408  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

consulted.  These  records  are  not  altogether  satisfactory  on  the 
point  of  duration.  The  founding  dates  which  they  contain  are 
sometimes  inaccurate.  They  do  not  give  the  dates  of  suspension. 
And  often  the  name  of  a  periodical  and  data  concerning  it  have 
been  repeated  in  the  annuals  for  one  or  two  years  after  its  publica- 
tion has  ceased.  But  when  no  corrections  from  files  or  interested 
persons  were  obtainable,  the  first  and  last  years  of  a  publication's 
appearance  in  the  directory  lists  have  been  taken  for  the  statistics 
herein  given.  Andreas  commented  that  for  his  History  of  Chi- 
cago (1884)  it  was  occasionally  impracticable  to  decide  whether 
some  of  the  publications  announced  "  had  assumed  form  or 
remained  inchoate  in  the  minds  of  the  projectors"  because  the 
records  in  newspaper  directories  were  inaccurate.  He  said  it  was 
impossible  to  get  specific  dates,  the  fire  having  destroyed 
printed  evidence,  and  memories  proving  unreliable.  Paul  Selby, 
in  preparing  a  section  on  "Defunct  Newspapers  and  periodicals" 
for  Moses  and  Kirkland's  History  of  Chicago  ( 1895),  drew  heav- 
ily on  Andreas  for  the  early  period,  and  then  devoted  only  a 
column  and  a  half  to  the  periodicals  after  1857,  saying:  "The 
records  of  subsequent  years  are  even  more  imperfect  than  the 
preceding."  In  no  history  of  Chicago  has  the  ground  been  cov- 
ered. The  Inter  Ocean  s  History  of  Chicago,  Its  Men  and  Insti- 
tutions (1900),  dismisses  the  subject  with  a  brief  paragraph 
stating  that  Chicago  has  made  a  number  of  attempts  at  high-grade 
literary  magazines,  but  that  "none  has  met  with  noteworthy 
success^  probably  owing  to  the  fact  that  literature  is  not  of  a  local 
character."  A  list  of  107  newspapers  and  periodicals  destroyed 
in  the  fire  was  compiled  in  1872  by  James  W.  Sheahan  and  George 
P.  Upton,  who'  complained  that  they  had  tO'  depend  solely  on 
memory  in  getting  it  ready  for  their  volume.  The  Great  Confla- 
gration: Chicago,  Its  Past,  Present,  and  Future. 

[To  be  continued] 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO.    Ill  AND 

IV 


HERBERT  E.  FLEMING 
University  of  Chicago 


III.     LITERARY  PERIODICALS  FOLLOWING  THE  CHICAGO  FIRE 

"  I  found  Chicago  wood  and  clay,"  a  mighty  Kaiser  said, 
Then  flung  upon  the  sleeping  mart  his  royal  robes  of  red. 

And  so  the  swift  evangels  ran  by  telegraphic  time, 
And  brought  the  cheer  of   Christendom   from   every  earthly  clime; 
Celestial  fire  flashed  round  the  globe,  from  Norway  to  Japan, 
Proclaimed  the  manhood  of  the  race,  the  brotherhood  of  man ! 

They  all  were  angels  in  disguise,  from  hamlet,  field  and  mart, 
Chicago,s  fire  had  warmed  the  World  that  had  her  woe  by  heart. 
"Who  is  my  neighbor?"    One  and  all:    "We  see  her  signal  light, 
And  she  is  our  only  neighbor  now,  this  wild  October  night !  " 

— Benj.  F.  Taylor,  in  the  Lakeside  Monthly,  October,  1873. 

The  whole  nation  and  the  whole  world  centered  attention 
upon  Chicago  on  October  8  and  9,  1871.  On  these  days  flames, 
starting  on  the  West  Side,  swept  through  the  heart  of  the  busi- 
ness district  to  the  very  shore  of  tVie  lake,  like  prairie  fire 
through  stubble;  then  leaped  over  the  Chicago  river,  traversed 
the  North  side,  died  away  there;  and  left  the  lusty,  young 
giant  city  of  marvelous  growth  burned  and  prostrate.  A 
stream  of  sympathy  from  the  people  of  the  New  World  and  the 
Old  World  poured  in  upon  the  citizens  of  Chicago.  The  effect 
is  shown  in  the  pages  of  the  literary  periodicals  which  survived 
the  catastrophe,  and  in  those  of  the  many  new  ones  started 
in  the  years  of  the  seventies  following  the  fire.  From  them  it 
may  be  seen  that  the  fire  melted  some  of  the  barriers  of  western 
sectionalism.  The  world-wide  sympathy  caused  the  Chicago 
literary  men  to  feel   after  a  world-wide  point  oi  view,   more 

499 


500  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

consciously  than  they  had  done  before  under  the  merely 
nationalizing  influence  of  the  Civil  War. 

The  outside  aid  was  a  great  stimulus  to  local  energy,  helping 
the  ambitious  rebuilders  of  the  city  to  start  upon  a  remarkable 
period  of  business  enterprise;  a  period  which,  along  with  success 
in  more  material  lines,  led  to  the  establishment  of  literary 
periodicals  of  kinds  that  were  money-makers.  Not  only  food  and 
clothing  for  the  sufferers,  but  goods  for  the  merchants  on  long- 
time credit,  and  capital  on  easy  terms,  came  in  large  quantities 
from  other  parts  of  America  and  from  Europe.  All  this,  added 
to  their  own  determined  spirit,  led  Chicago  men  not  merely  to 
rebuild  on  a  larger  scale,  but  also  to  launch  new  enterprises. 
Among  such  were  papers  of  the  "family-story"  literary  order. 

That  the  typical  ventures  of  this  period  were  not  of  a  higher 
literary  type  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  "family-story" 
paper  was  the  most  promising  for  quick  returns  in  cash.  In  fact, 
it  is  because  investments  in  high-grade  publishing  in  general  do 
not  yield  returns  more  quickly  that  the  development  of  serious 
publishing  has  continued  to  be  comparatively  slow  in  Chicago. 
In  an  article  on  "Chicago  as  a  Publishing  Center"  in  "The  Com- 
mercial Association  Number"  of  the  Chicago  Evening  Post, 
March  8,  1905,  Mr.  T.  J.  Zimmerman,  managing  editor  of 
System,  a  successful  Chicago  magazine  of  information  on  busi- 
ness, puts  this  point  as  follows: 

The  whole  history  and  present  condition  of  the  publishing  business  in 
Chicago  may  be  summed  up  in  this  statement :  the  westerner  is  looking  for 
quick  profits ;  when  he  makes  an  investment  of  money  and  labor,  he  wants 
to  know  what  it  is  going  to  bring,  and  he  wants  to  see  the  results  at  once. 
In  the  publishing  business — that  is,  real,  sincere  publishing — this  is  impos- 
sible. The  initial  investment  in  a  book  or  magazine  is  heavy.  And  not  only 
this ;  returns  are  spread  over  a  long  period  of  time.  Westerners  have  not 
gone  into  the  publishing  field  to  a  greater  extent,  because  there  have  been 
so  many  opportunities  at  hand  for  quick  returns  into  which  their  energies 
could  be  turned. 

Twenty  years  before  the  Chicago  fire  it  had  been  discovered 
in  New  York  that  a  popular  story  paper  would  bring  returns  to 
an  investor.     And  we  have  already  seen  in  the  Chicago  periodi- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  S^l 

cals  of  the  sixties  a  drift  toward  this  "family-story"  type.  In 
1872  the  Chicago  Ledger  was  founded  in  direct  imitation  of  the 
Nezv  York  Ledger.  Concerning  the  "Popular  Story  Papers," 
in  a  section  on  "The  Weekly  Literary  Press,"  Mr.  S.  N.  D. 
North,  commissioner  for  the  special  Census  Report  on  "The 
Newspaper  and  Periodical  Press"   (1880),  says  in  part: 

The  most  notable  successes  attained  by  American  publications  not  of 
a  purely  news  character  are  found  in  the  type  of  periodical  of  which  Robert 
Bonner,  of  the  New  York  Ledger,  may  be  said  to  have  been  the  fortunate 
discoverer.  Mr.  Bonner  purchased  the  Ledger  in  1851,  and  shortly  there- 
after converted  it  from  a  commercial  sheet  into  a  family  newspaper,  excluding 
from  its  contents  everything  relating  to  the  business  and  news  of  the  day, 
and  substituting  therefor  a  series  of  continued  and  short  stories,  not 
generally  of  the  highest  class  of  fiction.  But  he  attracted  public  attention  to 
his  venture  by  engaging  the  best-known  literary  men  of  the  country  to 
write  for  the  Ledger  over  their  own  signatures.  It  rapidly  rose  to  an  enor- 
mous circulation,  which  at  times  has  reached  as  high  as  400,000  per  issue.  The 
Ledger  may  be  said  to  be  the  original  of  that  class  of  literary  publications. 
The  imitations  of  the  Ledger  have  been  numerous,  and  frequently  their 
publication  has  been  attended  with  great  pecuniary  success. 

The  Chicago  Ledger  has  met  with  such  success. 

This  paper  was  begun  in  connection  with  a  newspaper  plate 
supply  business.  For  about  twenty  years  Samuel  H.  Williams,  a 
man  of  ability,  was  the  editor.  Like  the  New  York  Ledger, 
the  Chicago  Ledger,  during  its  first  few  years,  made  a  leading 
feature  of  stories  which  were  literary  in  the  accepted  sense  of 
that  word.  Containing  this  grade  of  literature,  printed  on 
cheap  paper,  and  sold  at  $1  for  fifty-two  numbers,  it  met  with 
immediate  favor,  especially  in  the  rural  districts,  during  the 
seventies.  By  1879  the  Chicago  Ledger  had  a  circulation  of 
10,000,  which  was  a  paying  start  for  it. 

Little  by  little,  however,  the  higher  class  of  well-written 
fiction  was  dropped.  One  reason  for  this  was  competition  intro- 
duced by  the  advent  of  the  "Lakeside  Library,"  published  by 
Donnelly,  Lloyd  &  Co.,  1875-77.  The  books  of  this  "library" 
were  tri-monthly  pamphlets,  the  first  of  the  kind,  containing 
cheap  reprints  of  standard  fiction,  selling  at  ten  cents  per  copy 
and  attracting  millions  of  readers.     The  stories  of  the  Chicago 


502  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Ledger  took  on  that  more  thrilling  tone  which  is  retained  by 
those  appearing  in  the  current  issues  of  1906.  Although  selected 
by  an  editor  who  is  the  author  of  contributions  accepted  by 
high-grade  magazines,  their  form  is  unfinished.  The  contents, 
however,  are  not  of  an  immoral  tone.  In  fact,  the  stories,  like 
the  melodramas  of  the  cheap  theater,  often  point  a  moral,  with  a 
not  harmful  effect. 

The  motto  of  the  W.  D.  Boyce  Co.,  the  present  publishers, 
as  stated  by  Colonel  William  C.  Hunter,  the  secretary  and  active 
manager  of  the  Chicago  Ledger,  is :  "The  higher  the  fewer." 
In  more  positive  terms  it  might  be  put :  "The  lower  the  more." 
At  any  rate,  this  paper,  listed  in  the  newspaper  annuals  as 
"literary,"  has,  according  to  their  figures,  since  1900  enjoyed  a 
regular  circulation  of  nearly  300,000  a  week.  For  "Boyce's 
Weeklies" — the  Chicago  Ledger  and  the  Saturday  Blade,  a 
weekly  imitation  of  a  metropolitan  daily — an  average  circulation 
of  631,869  copies  is  claimed;  and  for  the  Woman's  World,  a 
monthly  which  has  grown  out  of  the  success  of  the  Ledger, 
829,982  copies.  Although  but  few  of  the  residents  of  Chicago 
have  ever  heard  of  these  periodicals,  these  figures  show  the 
banner  circulation  of  "literary"  periodical  publishing  in  Chicago. 
It  was  not  until  in  1891  that  Mr.  Boyce  acquired  the  Chicago 
Ledger.  Since  then  its  growth  has  been  remarkable.  It  is  the 
basis  of  success  with  a  paper  mill  and  a  city  office  building, 
which  fact,  like  many  of  the  points  already  made  in  this  series 
of  papers,  again  shows  the  engraftment  of  interests. 

In  "the  trade"  such  periodicals  as  the  Chicago  Ledger  have 
come  to  be  more  commonly  called  "mail-order"  papers  than 
"family-story"  papers.  It  is  thus  recognized  that  they  are  run 
primarily  for  revenue.  With  the  development  of  houses  selling 
all  kinds  of  goods  direct  to  people  in  country  homes,  on  orders 
by  mail,  the  Chicago  Ledger  and  the  "mail-  order"  papers  have 
been  used  for  advertising  by  such  firms.  These  mail-order 
houses,  of  which  the  original,  that  of  Montgomery  Ward  &  Co., 
started  during  the  same  year  as  the  Chicago  Ledger,  in  1872, 
were  among  the  new  ventures  in  the  period  of  enterprise  after 
the  fire.     Their  proprietors  wanted  to  reach  the  country  popu- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  503 

lation.  The  Chicago  Ledger  managers  often  point  out  that  69 
per  cent,  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  live  outside  of 
the  cities,  and  that  the  circulation  of  the  "mail-order"  papers  is 
in  the  country  tOM^ns,  villages,  and  rural  communities.  In  the 
seventies  the  percentage  of  the  population  classed  as  rural  was 
even  larger.  And  since  the  Chicago  Ledger  and  the  "family- 
story"  papers  have  never  been  much  read  in  the  cities,  they  were 
used  from  the  start  to  get  advertisements  to  the  country  people. 
The  general  advertising  agencies  were  becoming  an  important 
factor  in  certain  lines  of  business  by  the  late  seventies.  For  the 
large  campaigns  which  they  conducted,  the  first  mediums  they 
used,  after  the  local  newspapers  eyerywhere,  were  the  "family- 
story"  papers,  whose  publishers  were  thus  saved  from  great 
outlay  in  their  organization  for  securing  advertisements.  This 
aided  greatly  in  a  quick  realization  of  profits. 

However  sensational  the  call  for  a  reader's  attention,  and 
despite  the  country  reader's  interest  in  the  advertisements,  the 
Chicago  Ledger  still  appeals  to  the  aesthetic  interest  broadly 
defined — to  the  interest  in  story.  Incidentally  this  journal  has 
lived  for  thirty-three  years,  and  maintained  its  identity,  char- 
acter, and  name.  No  other  Chicago  periodical  having  some  sort 
of  a  dominant  literary  character  can  boast  as  much. 

Thirty  per  cent,  of  the  literary  periodicals  begun  in  Chicago 
during  the  period  after  the  fire  were  of  this  "family-story"  type, 
a  larger  percentage  than  the  figures  for  those  of  its  kind  started 
in  any  decadal  period  since  then.  Among  the  ventures  of  this 
class  in  Chicago  following  the  fire  were  the  following  papers : 
Our  Fireside  Friend,  1872-75;  the  Cottage  Monthly,  1873; 
Turner's  Minaret,  1873-75;  Western  Home,  1874-75;  the  Old 
Oaken  Bucket,  1876;  and  Sunset  Chimes,  1876-87.  One  of  the 
newspaper  annuals  contained  a  standing  line  which  described  the 
contents  of  these  and  similar  periodicals  as  "entertaining 
literature." 

The  relative  permanence  of  the  literary  periodicals  started  in 
Chicago  after  the  fire,  including  those  of  the  higher  as  well  as 
those  of  the  lower  literary  orders,  is  one  notable  feature  of  the 
period,  despite  the  fact,  pointed  out  by  E.  Steiger,  of  New  York, 


504  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

in  a  compilation  of  American  periodicals  for  the  "ephemeral 
intellectual  department"  of  the  Vienna  exposition  in  1873,  that 
in  general  "literary  enterprises  are  ephemeral" — a  generalization 
also  brought  out  by  the  census  of  1870.  Statistics  compiled  in 
the  course  of  study  for  these  papers  show  that  eight  of  the 
forty-seven  periodicals  of  a  literary  character  started  in  Chicago 
after  the  fire  and  before  1880  lived  for  more  than  fifteen  years, 
and  that  four  started  in  that  period  are  extant.  This  is  all  the 
more  remarakable  when  it  is  pointed  out  that,  as  the  result  of 
the  financial  panic  of  1873,  ^  dozen  periodicals  died.  But  in 
1876,  in  Rowell's  list  prepared  for  the  national  Centennial  Expo- 
sition, there  were  titles  of  twenty  literary  Chicago  periodicals. 
Following  the  panic  there  was  a  new  spurt  of  energy  injected 
into  the  business  activity  Avhich  followed  the  fire. 

In  the  establishment  of  the  profitable,  low-grade  story 
periodicals  the  indirect  influence  of  world-wide  assistance  to  the 
burned-out  city  has  been  traced.  Ito  more  direct  effects,  through 
enlarging  the  point  of  view  of  Chicago  editors,  may  be  found  in 
the  journals  and  periodicals  of  a  higher  literary  order  during 
the  fire  decade. 

The  most  notable  direct  aid  from  the  Old  World  to  the  literary 
interests  of  Chicago  came  in  a  gift  from  England,  a  contribution 
which  was  the  beginning  of  the  Chicago  Public  Library. 
In  the  fire  the  semi-public  libraries  were  destroyed,  and  the 
people  lost  the  books  of  their  homes.  Moved  by  the  thought  of 
such  a  loss,  Thomas  Hughes,  the  author  of  Tom  Brown  at 
Oxford,  led  his  countrymen  in  collecting  a  large  library  of  fiction 
and  general  works.  This  was  sent  to  Chicago  and  accepted 
gladly,  the  whole  community  being  deeply  impressed  by  an  act 
of  such  refined  sympathy. 

Dr.  W.  F.  Poole,  a  pioneer  in  the  public-library  movement, 
was  called  as  librarian.  And  in  October,  1874,  with  the  bookwise 
doctor  as  editor,  W.  B.  Kern,  Cooke  &  Co.,  booksellers  and  pub- 
lishers, brought  out  a  three-column  folio  entitled  the  Ozvl,  and 
subtitled  "A  Literary  Monthly."  In  No.  i,  to  be  found  in  a  file 
at  the  Newberry  Library,  there  appeared  a  dialogue,  in  which 
the  Public  said  to  the  Owl:     "Qui  vive?"     The  O^c/  gave  the 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  5° 5 

countersign  "A  pure  literature."  And  the  Public  said:  "All 
right,  and  all  hail,"  As  "an  organ  of  all  that  is  good  and 
true,  and  an  enemy  of  all  that  is  bad  and  false  in  this  age  and 
country,"  the  Owl  was  devoted  chiefly  to  new  books.  The 
essays  by  Dr.  Poole  were  a  feature  in  which  he  carried  out  his 
policy  oi  impressing  on  the  community  high  standards,  and  at 
the  same  time  a  belief  in  popular  fiction  reading,  an  influence 
from  him  which  was  recently  acknowledged  by  the  Dial. 

There  were  many  manifestations  of  the  striving  toward 
metropolitan  breadth  of  view-point  in  Chicago  literary  periodical 
ventures  during  the  later  seventies.  This  was  so,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fact  that  in  population  Chicago  was  not  yet  the 
metropolis  of  the  Mississippi  valley.  St  Louis,  with  310,864 
inhabitants,  outranked  Chicago,  the  fifth  in  the  list  of  cities,  with 
298,977  at  the  census  of  1870.  The  Inland  Monthly  Magazine, 
i2)y2-yy,  advertised  as  "the  only  magazine  of  the  West  and 
South  devoted  to  literature,  science,  art,  humor,  sketches,  etc.," 
had  its  main  office  at  St.  Louis,  and  merely  a  branch  in  Chicago. 

By  1873  Chicago  had  reached  such  a  stage  of  metropolitan 
sophistication  as  to  have  its  first  periodical  devoted  exclusively 
to  humor.  "Carl  Pretzel"  was  the  nom  de  plume  of  C.  H. 
Harris,  the  editor.  He  began  with  Carl  Pretzel's  Magazine 
Pook,  in  which  the  sketches,  like  all  his  works,  were  written  in 
the  style  of  Leland's  Hans  Breitmann.  This  Pook  was  a  weekly 
folio,  filled  with  good  fun  on  local  topics,  phrased  in  a  pseudo- 
German-English  lingo.  In  this  form  of  expression  is  to  be  seen 
one  influence  of  Chicago's  large  and  important  German  popula- 
tion. Many  anglicized  German  expressions  and  many  ger- 
manized  English  phrases  have  made  fun  in  the  ordinary 
conversation  of  Chicago  people.  Hence  "Carl  Pretzel's"  form 
of  humorous  expression  met  with  a  specially  ready  welcome. 
In  attitude  his  humor  was  of  the  comic  variety,  which,  as  is  seen 
in  the  current  work  of  Ade,  McCutcheon,  and  Dunne,  is  the 
characteristic  Chicago  humor — the  comic  as  against  the  cynic  of 
more  sophisticated  New  York.  Mr.  Francis  F.  Browne,  Mr. 
John  McGovern,  and  Mr.  John  R.  Walsh,  from  their  varying 
points    of    view ,  agree    in    recollections    that    "Carl    Pretzel's" 


506  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

"stuff"  was  decent,  clever  humor,  not  in  the  least  coarse.  The 
only  file  of  his  periodicals  available,  a  sample  of  Der  Leedle 
Vanderer,  1876,  in  the  "Number  i  Book"  at  the  Historical 
Society  Library,  gives  the  same  impression. 

From  his  beginning  with  the  use  of  local  material,  Mr.  Harris 
branched  out,  and  in  1874  established  Carl  Pretzel's  National 
Weekly,  which  later  had  the  word  "illustrated"  in  its  title  to 
advertise  its  cartoons,  and  was  published  regularly  until  1893. 
After  a  time  "Carl  Pretzel"  was  more  or  less  written  out,  and 
his  paper  gave  considerable  attention  to  politics,  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll  and  John  A.  Logan  being  among  the  contributors.  It 
also  became  an  organ  of  some  secret  society  interests.  It  never 
reached  a  circulation  of  more  than  5,500,  which  shows  that  its 
constituency  was  more  local  than  national.  In  1886  an  advertise- 
ment showed  that  it  kept  something  of  its  original  character. 
This  announcement  read  as  follows : 

Subscription  price,  $2  for  one  year,  or  $150  for  100  j-ears.  By  subscribing 
for  100  years,  subscribers  can  save  $50.  Anyone  can  see  that  here  is  an 
excellent  opportunity  to  save  money.  Twelfth  year  and  the  largest  circula- 
tion of  any  weekly  newspaper  in  Chicago. 

Changes  made  in  the  name  of  a  journal  devoted  to  stories 
and  news  of  sportsmanship,  which  was  begun  in  1874  and  is 
continued  today,  are  significant  of  movements  toward  a  wider 
outlook.  The  founder,  Dr.  N.  Rowe,  who  always  signed  himself 
"Mohawk,"  first  called  this  periodical  Field  and  Stream.  The 
next  year  he  changed  the  name  to  the  Chicago  Field.  Then  in 
1879  it  became  the  American  Field;  and  from  1883  on  it  has 
been  dated  from  New  York  as  well  as  Chicago,  although  the 
main  ofiice  has  been  in  the  Masonic  Temple  at  Chicago.  Since 
the  death  of  its  founder  several  years  ago,  the  periodical  has 
been  carried  on  with  Mrs.  N.  Rowe  as  editor. 

Another  sign  of  the  stir  toward  metropolitanism  was  seen  in 
a  literary  periodical  based  on  the  social  stratification  then 
developing.  There  was  a  joining  of  interest  in  literature,  art, 
and  music  with  the  news  of  the  local  society  sets,  in  this  journal. 
the  Saturday  Evening  Herald,  founded  in  1874  by  Lyman  B. 
Glover,  who  later  became  a  newspaper  dramatic  critic,  having 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  507 

a  wide  following.  This  paper  is  still  published,  although  devoted 
almost  exclusively  to  society.  In  its  first  years.,  however,  with 
John  M.  Dandy  and  G.  M.  McConnell  doing  editorial  work  in 
addition  to  that  of  Mr.  Glover,  the  paper  was  distinguished  for 
essays  and  other  literary  efforts  of  excellent  quality.  Among 
the  quasi-literary  journals  of  Chicago  it  was,  in  its  day,  one  of 
the  most  influential. 

More  important,  however,  as  an  index  of  an  expanding  point 
of  view,  was  the  advent  of  a  periodical  founded  in  1873,  by  a 
group  of  liberal,  literary  preachers — Professor  David  Swing, 
Rev.  Robert  Collyer,  Dr.  Hiram  W.  Thomas,  and  others.  To 
symbolize  their  getting  together,  they  named  the  periodical 
the  Alliance.  It  contained  a  faint  religious  dye.  But  it  was 
first  of  all  colored  with  an  effort  at  literary  expression,  chiefly 
in  the  essay  form.  The  denominational  religious  press  in 
Chicago,  although  it  has  been  most  successful  and  has  been 
marked  by  the  incidental  use  of  material  appealing  to  the 
literary  interest,  is  not  a  subject  for  treatment  here.  In  a  more 
general  account  of  the  aesthetic  interests  of  Chicago  such 
religious-literary  periodicals  should  be  given  attention,  because 
the  purely  religious  desires  and  the  most  purely  aesthetic  desires 
are  closely  allied.  But  the  main  features  of  the  denominational 
papers  are  the  items  of  church  news.  The  Alliance,  however, 
was  primarily  literary — so  distinctly  literary  that,  at  one  time, 
Mr.  Francis  F.  Browne,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  decade,  con- 
sented to  be  its  managing  editor.  At  the  inception  of  the 
Alliance  the  literary  clergymen  attempted  to  settle  their  editorial 
problems  in  meetings  as  a  board  of  editors.  This  proved  fatal 
to  any  progress.  Soon  Professor  Swing  became  the  editor-in- 
chief  and  chief  contributor.  His  weekly  essay  was  one  of  the 
literary  treats  of  the  period,  and  was  later  continued  when  the 
Alliance  was  merged  with  the  Weekly  Magazine  in  1882. 
According  to  the  testimony  of  those  concerned,  the  Alliance  lost 
its  identity  from  deliberate  wrecking  by  its  business  manager, 
who  is  alleged  to  have  taken  advantage  of  the  allied  ministers' 
lack  of  business  experience. 

A  western  magazine  from  the  newer  West  moved   east  to 


508  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Chicago  in  1879,  drawn  by  the  centripetal  force  the  city  was 
exerting  as  the  growing  metropoHs  of  the  West.  This  was  the 
Western  Magazine — the  third  in  Chicago  to  bear  that  name. 
It  had  been  established  in  Omaha  three  years  before.  The 
periodical  was  of  regular  magazine  form,  with  two  columns  of 
neatly  printed  matter  on  each  page,  and  many  excellent  wood- 
cuts illustrating  mountain  scenery  and  the  towns  from  "British 
Columbia  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico."  It  was  divided  into  two 
departments,  whose  character  was  told  by  the  following  headings : 
"The  Original  Department  of  'The  Western  Magazine/  con- 
taining Select  Articles  from  Our  Best  Western  Writers;"  and, 
"The  Eclectic  Department  of  'The  Western  Magazine,'  contain- 
ing the  Cream  of  European  Literature."  Although  containing 
original  stories,  the  leading  feature  of  the  "original  department" 
was  illustrated  articles  and  historical  sketches  on  the  towns  of 
the  western  states,  in  the  form  of  travel  letters  from  John  H. 
Pierce,  the  publisher.  One  of  these  referred  to  Kansas  City  as 
"the  new  Chicago  of  the  West."  These  articles  were  accom- 
panied by  local  advertisements  from  the  places  written  up,  and 
thus  brought  the  publisher  his  principal  receipts,  which  were 
augmented  by  subscriptions  secured  in  these  towns,  at  $1  a  year. 
Like  Chicago's  pioneer  literary  journals,  the  Western  Magazine, 
while  at  Omaha,  said,  May,  1879: 

Give  a  prompt  and  willing  support  to  the  only  periodical  that  illustrates 
our  western  country;  and  in  the  not  far  distant  future  we  will  furnish  a 
magazine  equal  in  size  and  variety  of  attractions  to  the  standard  monthlies 
of  the  eastern  states. 

When  the  Western  Magazine  came  to  Chicago,  Mrs,  Helen 
Elkin  Starrett  was  engaged  to  be  its  editor.  Mrs.  Starrett, 
having  in  her  youth  contributed  to  Holland's  Springfield 
Republican,  in  Massachusetts;  having  written  a  volume  of 
poetry;  having  later  edited  a  newspaper  at  Lawrence,  Kans. ; 
having  written  editorials  and  literary  criticisms  for  Joseph 
Pulitzer's  St.  Louis  Post-Dispatch;  and  having  been  before  the 
public  as  a  lecturer  on  literary  and  social  topics,  particularly  in 
the  western  states,  was  regarded  as  especially  well  qualified  for 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  5^9 

the  position.  Mrs.  Starrett,  who  today  conducts  a  school  for 
g-irls  in  Chicago,  teaches  Hterature,  and  writes  poetry  for  an 
accredited  New  York  publisher,  gave  many  interesting  sug- 
gestions on  the  period  treated  in  this  paper. 

The  files  of  the  Western  Monthly  show  an  immediate 
improvement  in  its  literary  quality  after  its  transferrence  to 
Chicago.  The  Burlington  (Iowa)  Hawkeye,  in  the  reviewers' 
comments,  reprinted  by  the  Western  Magazine,  said:  "Mrs. 
Starrett  is  eminently  qualified  and  will  be  to  the  western  literary 
interests  what  Mary  Mapes  Dodge  and  other  eminent  lady 
editorial  workers  are  to  eastern  literature."  The  same  paper 
quoted  the  Chicago  Tribune  as  declaring  that  the  Western  Maga- 
zine would  be  "the  foundation  of  great  things  in  the  literary 
history  of  Chicago." 

"A  Welcome  Suggestion,"  from  a  "Well-Wisher  and  Reader," 
which  is  most  significant  of  the  Chicago  desire  for  a  literary 
organ  of  metropolitan  character,  was  published  in  the  September, 
1880,  issue  of  the  Western  Magazine.  It  turned  out  that  this 
anonymous  suggestion  had  come  from  Frederic  Ives  Carpenter, 
now  a  professor  of  English  literature  at  the  University  of 
Chicago,  at  that  time  a  Chicago  high-school  boy.  The  contribu- 
tion said,  in  part : 

Since  the  days  of  the  Lakeside  Monthly  and  the  Chicago  Magazine,  it 
has  seemed  to  many  of  the  literary  and  semi-Hterary  people  of  this  city  as 
though  the  day  must  be  a  long  way  off  when  Chicago  might  hope  to  have 
any  exclusively  literary  organ  of  its  intellectual  interests. 

Now,  your  magazine  is  the  rising  sun  of  our  hopes.  Will  it  be  long 
before  the  Western  Magazine  is  recognized  as  a  worthy  representative  of 
our  literary  interests,  before  you  allow  it  to  become  metropolitan? 

Rushing,  trade-maddened  Chicago  is  well  supplied  with  periodicals  that 
uphold  its  myriad  trade  and  labor  and  religious  fields  of  activity.  Yet  not 
a  sheet  for  its  literature.  Why  should  New  York  have  its  Scribner's  and 
Harper's,  Boston  its  Atlantic,  Philadelphia  its  Lippincott's  and  we  only  our 
dailies  and  the  denominational  religious  weeklies? 

The  Western  Magazine  can  make  a  career.  Broaden  your  interests; 
admit  fiction  (the  modern  home  of  geniuses)  and  literary  criticism;  or  at 
least,  if  we  are  not  ready  for  that — literary  gossip.  Do  this  for  the  sake  of 
the  cosmopolitan  culture  that  any  metropolis  like  this  possesses,  and  which 
calls  for  this. 


510  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  publication  of  this  significant  communication  was  made 
the  occasion  for  opening  a  new  department  in  the  magazine, 
called  "The  Club."  Mrs.  Starrett  declared  editorially  that 
there  was  "no  more  significant  sign  of  social  progress  than  the 
spread  of  literary  and  social  organizations  known  as  clubs, 
whether  woman's  clubs,  art  clubs,  social  science  clubs,  or  study 
clubs."  The  Chicago  Philosophical  Society,  really  a  literary 
society  in  which  Mr.  Franklin  Head,  Mr.  Lyman  J.  Gage,  and 
other  prominent  business  and  professional  men  interested  in 
reading,  met  for  discussions,  was  the  most  important  club  in 
Chicago  at  the  time.  The  Saracen  Club,  the  Fortnightly,  the 
Chicago  Woman's  Club,  and  the  Athena,  of  which  Mr. 
Carpenter's  mother  was  president,  were  notable,  the  woman's- 
club  movement  having  become  well  started.  Mrs.  Starrett  says 
that  Chicago  people  interested  in  letters  were  much  more  closely 
associated  in  those  days  than  has  since  been  possible  in  the 
enlarged  city. 

A  sub-title  was  added  to  the  name  of  the  Western  Magazine 
announcing  it  to  be  "A  Literary  Monthly."  The  editor  was 
flooded  with  manuscripts  from  local  writers  and  from  writers  in 
other  cities,  for  both  "The  Club"  department  and  the  general 
literary  pages.  Much  of  the  material  was  amateurish.  But  some 
of  it  was  done  in  promising  style  by  authors,  who,  through  their 
start  in  tliis  medium,  later  attained  some  prominence,  among 
them  being  Lillian  Whiting.  After  one  of  the  later  issues, 
Professor  Swing  sent  a  note  to  Mrs.  Starrett  in  which  he  said : 

There  is  no  better-edited  magazine,  nor  one  containing  finer  writing, 
east  or  west  or  anywhere,  than  our  little  magazine  which  has  just  come  to 
my  desk. 

But  at  that  time  the  interests  of  Mrs.  Starrett,  who  had 
previously  found  75,000  readers  for  an  article  on  "The  House- 
keeping of  the  Future,"  in  the  Forum,  turned  more  keenly  to 
social  and  economic  questions  than  to  form  in  literature.  The 
contributions  to  "The  Club"  department  soon  were  almost 
exclusively  along  these  lines — the  reproductions  of  essays  read 
at  club  meetings  by  studious  women.  For  this  reason,  among 
others  reflecting  the  general  situation,  it  is  not  surprising  that 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  511 

on  merging  the  Alliance  in  March  1882,  the  Western  Magazine 
became  the  Weekly  Magazine,  and  announced  that  thereafter  it 
would 

present  to  its  readers  each  week  the  same  choice  collection  of  literary  matter, 
with  an  added  department  of  great  interest  devoted  to  discussions,  by  able 
and  well-known  writers,  on  the  important  political,  social,  and  economic 
topics. 

While  the  weekly  sermon-essay  by  Professor  Swing,  written 
after  the  manner  of  Addison  in  The  Roger  de  C overly  Papers, 
was  the  leading  literary  feature,  and  there  were  some  stories  and 
poems,  the  main  source  of  interest  in  the  contents  of  the  Weekly 
Magazine  came  more  and  more  to  be  inquiry  about  social  ques- 
tions. A  regular  letter  from  Washington  was  sent  by  Gail 
Hamilton.  James  G.  Blaine  contributed  an  article  on  "The 
South  American  Policy  of  the  Garfield  Administration."  Mr. 
William  A.  Starrett,  Mrs.  Starrett's  husband,  at  first  associate 
editor,  wrote  such  acceptable  reviews  of  political  events  that  in 
the  later  numbers  his  name  was  put  above  Mrs.  Starrett's  in  the 
lines  naming  the  editors. 

The  circulation  of  the  Weekly  Magazine  reached  23,450  in 
1883,  not  equaling,  however,  the  50,000  credited  to  the  Western 
Magazine  in  1880.  It  was  backed  to  an  extent  by  prominent 
Chicago  business  men.  George  M.  Pullman  and  C.  B.  Farwell 
contributed  $1,000  each  for  stock,  and  Marshall  Field  $500. 
The  editors  had  no  part  in  the  business  management.  The 
business  manager,  who  had  previously  been  in  charge  of  the 
Alliance,  got  the  affairs  of  the  Weekly  Magazine  into  such  a 
hopeless  tangle  that  it  became  bankrupt,  and  ended  its  career  in 
1884. 

The  history  of  the  Western  Magazine  and  the  Weekly  Maga- 
zine gives  another  example  of  the  diverting  of  the  aesthetic 
literary  interest  to  the  knowledge  interest.  But  the  story  of  its 
attraction  to  Chicago  from  the  farther  West,  and  of  its  develop- 
ment thereafter,  shows  the  movement  toward  metropolitanism 
in  Chicago,  and  carries  us  over  into  a  period  of  greater  develop- 
ment toward  that  characteristic  in  the  eighties. 


512  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

IV.     JOURNALS  FOR  LETTERS  IN  THE  MARKET  METROPOLIS, 

1880-90 

"  It  is  universally  conceded  that  Chicago  is  rapidly  achieving  world-wide 
reputation  as  the  great  literarj"^  center  of  the  United  States." — From  Culture's 
Garland,  Being  Memoranda  of  the  Gradual  Rise  of  Literature,  Art,  Music  and 
Society  in  Chicago,  and  Other  Western  Ganglia,  by  Eugene  Field  (Ticknor  & 
Co.,  Boston,  1887). 

Chicago  arrived  at  the  rank  of  a  metropoHs  during  the  decade 
of  1880.  A  position  of  metropolitan  character  was  reached,  as 
far  as  the  groundwork  of  materiaHstic  supremacy  in  a  large  terri- 
tory is  concerned.  In  tracing  the  origin  and  character  of  the 
literary  periodicals  outcropping  in  these  years,  and  the  interplay 
of  literary  and  other  interests,  the  first  requirement  is  a  picture  of 
Chicago  as  a  material  metropolis. 

It  has  often  been  said  by  the  citizens  of  older  centers  that  a 
nation  can  have  only  one  metropolis,  only  one  "mother-city." 
Unquestionably,  New  York  city  has  been  the  metropolis  of 
America  for  many  decades.  But  the  essential  idea  of  metropolis 
is  that  of  the  relation  of  the  city  center  to  an  expanse  of  its  sur- 
rounding country.  The  United  States  covers  so  large  a  sweep  of 
country  that  several  European  cities  of  metropolitan  rank,  along 
with  their  supporting  empires,  could  be  set  down  in  it.  In  posi- 
tion Chicago  is  the  center  of  the  most  fertile  and  extensive  expanse 
of  valley  and  prairie  in  the  North  Temperate  Zone  —  a  territory 
which  by  1880  had  become  populous.  And  in  every  way  before 
the  close  of  the  eighties  Chicago  had  become  the  chief  city  of  the 
West,  and  also  the  first  of  the  nation,  and  indeed  of  the  world  in 
not  a  few  phases  of  business  and  commercial  command. 

The  foremost  of  the  chief  positions  of  which  Chicago  men 
could  and  did  boast  was  the  rank  attained  as  the  greatest  railroad 
center.  Ever  since  the  prairie  days  Chicago  had  been  growing 
rapidly  as  a  railroad  center.  This  growth  had  come  out  of  the 
food-supply  industry,  and  had  been  reared  on  the  bringing  of 
wheat  and  cereals  to  Chicago  for  shipment  over  the  lakes,  and  of 
live  stock  to  the  Union  Stock  Yards,  the  greatest  wholesale  meat- 
market  in  the  world.  Established  in  1865,  after  commissary 
work  for  the  Civil  War  had   demonstrated   the  importance  of 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  5  ^  3 

Chicago  as  a  point  for  supplies,  this  market  had  grown  to 
immense  proportions  by  1880.  On  the  bread-  and  meat-supply 
business  had  been  built  the  so-called  "Granger  Railroads,"  and 
their  development  was  followed  by  the  locating  in  Chicago  of 
manufacturing  plants  for  the  making  of  all  sorts  of  goods.  All 
this  called  for  more  railroads. 

Seven  new  main  lines  were  built  into  the  city  during  the 
eighties.  This  made  the  total  number  of  trunk  lines  with  ter- 
minals in  Chicago  an  even  twenty,  which,  according  to  Blanchard, 
was  the  full  quota  of  "  railroads  entering  Chicago  on  their  own 
tracks  August  i,  1900."  Chicago  became  not  only  a  receiving 
point  for  raw  materials,  but  the  growth  of  the  railway  systems 
made  the  city  the  center  of  a  most  striking  example  of  that  which 
was  defined  by  Herbert  Spencer  in  his  elaborate  analogy  between 
the  structure  of  society  and  that  of  an  animal  organism,  as  the 
"social  distributing  system." 

As  it  took  a  multitude  of  people  to  handle  all  this  market, 
manufacturing,  and  railway  business,  the  number  increased  so 
rapidly  that  by  1880  Chicago  had,  in  population,  become  the 
metropolis  of  the  West.  The  census  of  1880  showed  that  in  num- 
bers of  people  Chicago  had  far  surpassed  St.  Louis,  which  had 
before  led  in  the  states  west  of  the  Alleghanies.  In  that  year 
Chicago's  population  was  more  than  half  a  million  by  several 
thousand.  This  meant  a  large  distribution  of  any  marketable 
commodity  for  consumers  within  the  city  itself.  But  the  popu- 
lation of  the  Middle  West,  Northwest,  and  Southwest,  increasing 
proportionately,  made  a  larger  market.  Chicago  became  the  chief 
inland  distributing  center,  not  only  for  life-sustaining  products  — 
food,  clothing,  druggists'  supplies,  and  lumber  for  housing — but 
also  for  material  luxuries,  and  finally  for  those  classes  of  goods 
designed  to  satisfy  the  aesthetic  interest. 

Among  the  many  jobbing-houses  which  had  grown  to  large 
proportions  by  1880,  one  of  the  most  notable  was  that  of  a  firm 
whose  largest  business  was  in  book- jobbing.  This  was  the 
McClurg  house,  known  since  1886  by  the  firm  name  of  A.  C. 
McClurg  &  Co.,  which  today,  in  a  nine-story  building,  does, 
besides  a  large  retail  book-selling  business  and  a  good  amount  of 


514  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

original  publishing,  the  most  extensive  book-distributing  business 
for  all  publishers  by  any  single  house  in  the  United  States.  In 
1880  this  house  was  the  most  conspicuous  among  three  large 
book-stores  in  adjoining  buildings  on  State  Street,  known  to 
residents  of  the  city,  to  visitors  from  the  Middle  West,  and  to 
tourists  as  "  Book-Sellers'  Row." 

The  immense  book-distributing  business  of  the  McClurg  firm 
was  built  up  in  conjunction  with,  and  as  an  engraftment  upon, 
another  line  of  jobbing.  The  retail  book-sellers  of  the  small 
towns  throughout  the  West  are  the  druggists,  who,  in  addition 
to  proprietary  medicines  and  drugs,  sell  a  varied  line  of  sundries. 
Such  a  retailer  would  often  ask  the  McClurg  company  to  deliver 
an  order  of  books  to  some  Chicago  house  jobbing  these  sundries, 
so  that  shipment  could  be  made  in  one  box.  Therefore  the  firm 
decided  to  supply  these  articles  direct.  And  today,  in  addition  to 
a  Monthly  Bulletin  of  Nezu  Books,  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.  send  out 
a  large  annual  volume,  the  cover  of  which  says:  Catalogue  of 
Blank  Books  and  Tablets,  Stationery,  Typewriter  Paper  and  Sup- 
plies, Hair  and  Tooth  Brushes,  Druggists'  Sundries,  Pocket- 
Books,  Pipes,  Pocket  Cutlery,  etc."  More  than  one  floor  of  their 
large  building  is  filled  with  such  prosaic  supplies. 

Directly  out  of  this  book-distributing  agency,  so  built  up, 
ramifying  to  drug-stores  and  book-stores  in  all  towns  of  the  West, 
and  centered  in  the  McClurg  house,  there  originated  a  journal  of 
literary  criticism  —  the  Dial.  In  1880  the  McClurg  firm  started 
this  periodical  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Francis  Fisher  Browne, 
who  from  its  first  number  until  the  last  of  the  current  volume  in 
1905  has  been  in  charge  of  its  editorial  management.  At  the 
time,  Mr.  Browne,  whose  work  in  editing  and  publishing  the 
Lakeside  Monthly  had  been  so  notable,  was  connected  with  the 
book-house  as  literary  adviser  in  its  publishing  department,  which 
General  A.  C.  McClurg  was  then  personally  making  special 
efforts  to  develop. 

Devoted  exclusively  to  literary  criticism  and  information  con- 
concerning  new  books,  the  Dial  did  not  and  does  not  make  the 
appeal  of  literary  form  direct  to  the  aesthetic  interest,  although 
the  style  of  its  contents  is  excellent.     Its  appeal  is  to  the  interest 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  5  I  5 

in  knowledge  about  the  form  and  contents  of  literary  works. 
The  Dial  was  raised  up  for  keeping  time  on  the  knowledge  of 
current  productions  of  literature. 

Nevertheless,  the  Dial  is  significant  of  Chicago  and  western 
literary  interests  as  they  devloped  in  the  decade  of  its  founding, 
and  as  they  have  grown  to  be  since  then.  With  Chicago  having 
attained  a  metropolitan  prominence  in  materialistic  things,  one 
characteristic  of  the  majority  of  Chicagoans  in  the  eighties 
became  self-confident  boasting  about  their  city.  It  was  the  crass 
clamor  of  a  puissant  metropolitanism  of  the  market-place.  When 
this  note  became  most  strong,  many  citizens,  with  material 
achievements  accomplished,  began  to  have  some  doubts  as  to 
whether  business  success  is  all  of  greatness  possible.  The  appear- 
ance of  the  Dial  marked  the  fact  that  the  central  inland  market 
for  grosser  products  had  become  a  great  central  market  for  liter- 
ary goods.  In  a  section  where  literary  appreciation  was  much 
more  predominant  than  the  creative  literary  interest — writing 
and  publishing — it  is  perhaps  remarkable  that  such  a  journal  as 
the  Dial  did  not  come  earlier.  The  West  was  buying  books.  The 
West  began  to  criticise  books.  And  incidentally  other  journals 
of  literary  criticism,  among  them  being  a  short-lived  magazine 
called  the  American  Critic,  were  started  at  this  time.  Of  course, 
from  the  earliest  days  of  periodical-publishing  in  Chicago^  there 
had  been  some  literary  criticism.  But  the  attitude  of  appraising 
quality  had  not  been  a  characteristic  of  Chicago  until  the  decade 
of  the  eighties,  when  this  element  found  a  place  in  the  public  mind 
of  a  community  which  had  reached  a  material  metropolitanism, 
and  was  growing  toward  a  broader  and  higher  metropolitan 
spirit. 

The  history  of  the  Dial  during  the  eighties  and  later  tells  of 
the  advance  toward,  not  only  breadth,  but  also  independence  in 
the  judgment  of  letters.  During  the  entire  decade  of  the  eighties, 
and  for  two  years  in  the  nineties,  the  business  success  of  the  Dial 
was  made  easy  because  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.  were  heavy  whole- 
sale purchasers  from  all  of  the  large  publishing-houses  of  the 
East.  Naturally  the  publishers  were  quick  to  place  advertise- 
ments in  the  Dial.     Furthermore,  the  Dial,  published  by  Mc- 


5l6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Clurg's  had  to  criticise  books  from  the  publishing  department  of 
McClurg's.  The  effect  of  these  relationships  was  to  arouse  dis- 
belief in  the  independence  of  the  journal;  and  in  July,  1892,  the 
interest  of  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.  in  the  Dial  was  sold  to  Mr. 
Browne.  At  the  time  the  Dial  was  disconnected  from  their 
house,  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.  made  the  following  statement 
through  its  columns :  • 

The  change  looks  wholly  to  the  good  of  the  paper,  which,  it  is  believed, 
will  be  better  served  by  its  publication  as  a  separate  and  independent  enter- 
prise. It  is  perhaps  natural  that  a  critical  literary  journal  like  the  Dial  should 
be  to  some  extent  misunderstood  through  its  connection  with  a  publishing  and 
book-selling  house.  To  relieve  the  paper  from  this  disadvantage,  and  to  make 
its  literary  independence  hereafter  as  obvious  as  it  ever  has  been  real,  is  the 
prime  object  of  the  present  change. 

From  the  first,  Mr.  Browne,  though  a  prophet  of  Western 
literature,  had  maintained,  besides  a  broad  critical  outlook,  the 
high  ideals  of  editorial  independence  for  which  he  had  been 
respected  while  editing  the  Lakeside  Monthly.  With  Mr.  Browne 
as  sole  proprietor,  The  Dial  has  grown  in  prestige  until  today,  in 
1906,  it  stands  as  the  only  authoritative  American  journal  devoted 
exclusively  to  literary  criticism  that  is  not  connected  with  a  book- 
publishing  house.  While  in  the  eighties  its  circulation  was  in 
largest  part  western,  today  it  is  national,  although  not  large  as 
compared  with  the  popular  magazines,  because  the  constituency 
of  publishers,  reviewers,  librarians,  teachers,  ministers,  and  gen- 
eral readers  deeply  interested  in  literary  criticism  is  relatively 
small.  The  character  of  the  editor,  and  the  fact  that  experts  on 
special  topics  are  paid  for  reviews  expressing  their  opinions 
freely,  have  made  the  independence  of  the  journal  have  meaning. 
It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Dial,  although  published  in  the  inland 
metropolis,  is  the  leading  journal  of  literary  criticism  in  the 
nation. 

After  all  is  said  about  the  Dial  as  a  symbol  of  the  growing 
metropolitan  independence  of  criticism  in  Chicago,  that  which 
stands  out  as  most  striking  concerning  the  developments  of  the 
eighties  is  its  origin  in  a  book-distributing  agency  erected,  like 
other  freight-distributing  houses,  along  with  the  railway  systems 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  517 

which  made  the  dot  on  the  map  marked  "  Chicago "  a  metro- 
poHtan  center. 

The  distributing  of  people  as  well  as  packages  by  the  railway 
systems  centering  here  brought  the  Arkansaw  Traveler  and  Opie 
Read,  who  had  founded  this  periodical  at  Little  Rock  in  1882,  to 
Chicago  in  1887.  It  might  appear  that  the  name  Arkansaw 
Traveler  was  given  in  a  punning  mood,  because  its  contents  were 
prepared  for  the  amusement  of  railway  travelers.  But  it  was 
taken  from  a  tune  made  familiar  in  Arkansas  by  a  local  character, 
one  "  Sandy "  Faulkner,  who  as  a  candidate  for  the  legislature 
had  gone  about  the  state  playing  a  "fiddle"  and  reciting  a 
monologue.  The  contents  of  the  paper  were  of  a  humorous  char- 
acter—  sketches  and  jokes,  drawn  chiefly  from  the  lives  of 
southern  dialect  characters,  with  whom  Mr.  Read  had  made  him- 
self familiar  when  local  editor  of  the  Little  Rock  Gazette.  While 
during  the  early  eighties  the  comic  papers  of  New  York  were, 
according  to  Frederick  Hudson,  the  authority  on  American  jour- 
nalism, first  becoming  successful,  the  Arkansaw  Traveler,  still  at 
Little  Rock,  leaped  into  popularity,  first  in  the  Southwest  and 
then  through  the  North,  attaining  a  circulation  of  85,000  in  its 
second  year.  The  year  1887,  in  which  the  headquarters  of  the 
Arkansaw  Traveler  were  removed  to  Chicago,  was  one  in  which 
the  last  two  of  the  seven  lines  of  railroad  coming  into  Chicago 
in  the  eighties  were  opened.  Mr.  Read,  in  an  interview  given  to 
contribute  material  for  these  papers,  said : 

Chicago  had  become  the  great  railway  center.  Our  paper  was  sold  chiefly 
on  railway  trains.  We  moved  to  Chicago  so  as  to  be  in  position  for  reaching 
the  largest  number  of  railway  passengers  most  easily.  The  mailing  facilities 
of  Chicago,  as  the  central  point  in  a  spider's  web  of  railways,  also  led  us  here. 
In  those  days  schoolboys  were  not  used  extensively  for  the  sale  of  weekly 
papers.  Besides  making  sales  on  the  trains  through  the  news  companies,  we 
had  a  subscription  list.  For  years  Chicago  had  been  a  great  point  for  the  sale 
of  subscription  books.  For  our  weekly  of  general  circulation  the  business 
manager,  P.  D.  Benham,  my  brother-in-law,  found  that  it  was  not  possible  to 
get  advertising  in  the  same  proportion  to  the  number  of  subscribers  as  with  a 
local  newspaper.  The  advertising  patronage  came  from  the  general  agencies, 
and  in  those  days  magazine  advertising  was  not  done  so  generally  as  it  is 
today.     We  counted  on  sales  and  subscriptions. 

For  five  years  after  its  migration  to  the  western  railway 


Sl8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

metropolis,  the  Arkansaw  Traveler  held  its  own.  In  fact,  it  is 
still  brought  out  regularly  from  a  bookkeeping  supply  house. 
But  it  has  lost  its  unique  characteristics,  and  has  an  insignificant 
circulation. 

Mr.  Read  resigned  from  the  editorship  in  1892,  and  has  not 
since  contributed  to  the  paper.  His  resignation  was  made  partly 
because  some  promoters  acquired  control  of  the  organization  of 
the  periodical,  converted  it  into  a  stock  company,  and  proposed  to 
put  Mr.  Read,  its  creator,  on  salary.  But  a  more  important  rea- 
son was  that  Mr.  Read  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  humor 
and  character  sketches  put  into  ephemeral  form  in  a  weekly 
periodical  were  more  or  less  wasted.  He  aspired  to  write  books, 
and  had  been  encouraged  by  Ticknor  &  Co.,  of  Boston,  who  had 
already  published  one  of  his  southern  dialect  productions,  entitled 
"Len  Gansett."  For  thirteen  years,  since  resigning  from  the 
periodical  whose  interests  brought  him  here,  Mr.  Read  has  been 
in  Chicago  writing  for  publications  chiefly  in  book  form.  He  has 
probably  been  the  most  prolific  user  of  the  fiction  form  working 
continuously  in  Chicago  since  the  eighties.  A  score  of  his  books 
of  fiction  are  to  be  found  in  the  Public  Library.  Most  of  them 
have  been  published,  by  Chicago  printing-houses,  between  paper 
covers.  The  news-company  boys  on  passenger  trains  east  and 
west  will  tell  you  that  Opie  Read  is  the  author  most  popular 
among  train  readers.  He  has  held  and  enlarged  the  audience 
before  which  he  secured  his  first  hearing  with  sketches  and  jokes 
in  the  Arkansaw  Traveler.  And  recently  eastern  magazine  and 
book  publishers  have  solicited  and  secured  his  output. 

From  the  day  of  his  arrival,  Mr.  Read  has  been  the  personi- 
fication of  the  fact  that  the  growing  mid- American  metropolis  has 
been  constantly  drawing  to  itself  men  with  unique  points  of  view 
—  writers  whose  outlook  is  first  of  all  that  of  some  other  locality. 
To  busy  Chicago  Mr.  Read  brought  the  point  of  view  of  quaint 
and  quiet  southern  life,  the  eye  and  ear  of  an  interpreter  of  the 
dialect  characters  in  the  region  from  which  he  came.  Always 
picturesque  in  character,  wearing  a  long  black  coat,  black  string 
tie,  long  locks,  and  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  Mr.  Read  has  visited 
the  Press  Club  almost  daily,  and,  meeting  the  younger  news- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  519 

paper  men,  as  well  as  those  of  "the  old  guard,"  in  avowed  and 
democratic  freedom  and  simplicity,  has  imparted  his  point  of  view 
to  others.  Men  from  other  places  in  America  having  distinct 
local  color  have  brought  other  variations  in  point  of  view.  The 
attraction  of  such  men  was  specially  notable  in  the  eighties. 
Since  then  more  men  trained  to  the  cosmopolitan  view  of  letters 
and  art  derived  in  Europe  have  come  to  the  Chicago  field.  But  in 
that  decade  these  various  local  view-points,  along  with  the  atti- 
tude of  men  versed  in  classic  English  literature,  such  as  Mr. 
Browne  of  the  Dial,  fused  with  the  virile  mercantilism  through 
which  those  in  the  roar  of  Chicago's  busy  streets  saw  life  into  a 
new  composite  metropolitan  outlook.  It  affected  the  writers  and 
publishers  of  Chicago  in  the  eighties. 

The  conspicuous  patronage  of  artistic  endeavor,  in  various 
mediums,  by  citizens  who  had  acquired  wealth  with  the  city's 
growth  into  rank  as  a  great  mart,  worthy  of  satire  as  it  was  in 
some  aspects,  was  another  factor  in  creating  a  metropolitan 
attitude.  The  Art  Institute  by  1882  had  a  brick  building,  and  in 
1887  erected  for  school  and  museum  the  excellent  four-story 
Romanesque  structure  of  brown  stone,  on  Michigan  Boulevard, 
at  the  southwest  corner  of  Van  Buren  Street,  now  occupied  by 
the  Chicago  Club.  There,  in  the  heart  of  the  market  city,  on  a 
boulevard  which  was  fast  becoming  the  fine-arts  avenue  of  Chi- 
cago, was  a  material  temple  fixing  in  the  public  mind  the  idea  of 
art.  Theodore  Thomas  and  his  orchestra,  besides  filling  winter 
engagements  in  Chicago,  had  been  giving  long  series  of  summer- 
night  concerts  in  the  Exposition  Building  which  stood  on  the 
Lake  Front  until  1887.  Grand  opera  was  annually  presented  by 
foreign  companies,  and  the  drama,  exceptionally  well  patronized 
for  years,  was  presented  by  the  best  of  visiting  American  and 
English  actors.  All  this  told  on  the  attitude  of  the  literary 
workers  and  publishers  of  periodicals. 

But  the  most  interesting  expression  of  the  growing  metro- 
politan literary  consciousness  of  the  decade  was  "the  Saints'  and 
Sinners'  Corner."  Engene  Field,  the  poet  and  prose  humorist, 
who  had  been  in  newspaper  work  in  Missouri  and  Colorado  for 
ten  years  before  he  was  drawn  to  Chicago,  in   1883,  was  the 


520  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

voice  of  this  unique  group.  The  "Saints  and  Sinners"  were  a 
score  of  bibHophiles — clergymen,  general  readers,  and  literary 
workers — who  held  meetings,  imaginary  for  the  most  part,  in 
the  rare-book  corner  of  the  retail  department  of  the  house  of 
A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co.,  from  another  section  of  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  there  emanated  a  journal  of  literary  criticism.  It 
was  really  a  corner  in  the  Daily  Nezvs,  where  Field  had  a 
column  devoted  to  gossip  about  "The  Saints  and  Sinners,"  and 
local  literary  and  artistic  topics,  under  the  caption  "  Sharps  and 
Flats."  This  was  widely  read  and  had  a  great  effect  on  the  ideas 
of  the  community.  From  it,  in  1887,  Field  culled  selections, 
which  were  published  in  book-form  by  Ticknor  &  Co.,  of  Boston, 
under  the  title:  Culture's  Garland  —  Being  Memoranda  of  the 
Gradual  Rise  of  Literature,  Music  and  Society  in  Chicago,  and 
Other  Western  Ganglia. 

The  garland  with  which  Field  wreathed  Chicago  culture,  as 
shown  in  a  frontispiece,  was  a  string  of  sausages.  He  made  a 
reference  to  the  time  "  when  Chicago's  output  of  pork  swept  the 
last  prop  from  under  the  old  Elizabethan  school  at  Cincinnati ; " 
and  said,  on  p.  168: 

Here  in  Chicago  "  a  hand  well  known  in  literature "  is  a  horny,  warty 
but  honest  hand  which,  after  years  of  patient  toil  at  skinning  cattle,  or  at 
boiling  lard,  or  at  cleaning  pork,  has  amassed  sufficient  to  admit  of  its  mas- 
ter's reception  into  the  crime  de  la  creme  of  Chicago  culture. 
Besides  the  extreme  expression  of  satirical  criticism  which  he 
gave  to  sham  in  literary  patronage,  Field  also'  played  with  super- 
ficiality in  efforts  at  literary  and  artistic  production,  including 
some  fun  at  the  expense  of  three  ambitious  literary  periodicals 
started  in  Chicago  during  the  decade.  All  this  was  the  expres- 
sion of  an  attitude  that  is  typical  of  metropolitan  centers,  and 
which  in  older,  cosmopolitan  capitals  attains  a  degree  of  frigid  or 
flippant  cynicism  never  yet  reached  by  Chicago. 

The  three  periodicals  noticed  by  Field,  while  not  devoted  to 
satire,  were  more  metropolitan  in  character  than  any  which  had 
preceded  them  in  the  succession  of  those  started  in  Chicago. 
These  were  the  Current,  a  weekly  begun  in  1883  and  lasting  until 
1888 ;  Literary  Life,  a  monthly  magazine,  1884-87 ;  and  America, 
a  literary  and  political  weekly  journal,  1888-91. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  52 1 

The  Current  was  the  creation  of  Edgar  L.  Wakeman,  a 
brilHant  newspaper  man.  Magazinedom  is  a  kingdom  of  heaven 
of  which  many  newspaper  men,  in  Chicago  as  elsewhere,  often 
fondly  dream.  Mr.  Wakeman's  venture  stands  as  one  of  the 
most  conspicuous  efforts  to  get  over  the  wall.  As  Chicago  corre- 
spondent for  the  newspaper  of  Colonel  Henry  Watterson,  Mr. 
Wakeman  had,  by  the  use  of  postal  cards  which  he  sent  out  to 
prominent  people,  saying,  "You  will  be  interested  in  such  and 
such  a  number  of  the  Louisville  Courier,"  attracted  much  atten- 
tion to  his  work  in  a  paper  that  allows  scope  for  individuality. 
Both  in  promotion  and  character  the  Current  was  sensational. 
In  an  early  number  the  Current  declared  that  it  was  "the  weekly, 
literary,  news,  and  family  journal  of  our  time."  Its  ambitious 
ideal  was  stated  as  follows:  "The  Current  is  yet  a  model  of 
brevity  and  does  every  week  what  the  pretentious  magazines  aim 
to  do  once  a  month." 

While  a  family  journal,  the  Current  was  far  above  the  plane 
of  the  "  family-story"  type  of  papers  in  literary  quality.  Its  con- 
tents had  distinct  literary  merit.  And  yet  they  were  not  of  the 
classic  character  approached  in  such  a  magazine  as  the  Lakeside 
Monthly.  It  was  a  magazine  of  popular  literature.  It  may  with 
approximate  accuracy  be  listed  as  the  first  of  that  type  undertaken 
in  Chicago.  And  by  Mr.  Forrest  Crissey,  the  western  editor  for 
two  current  eastern  magazines  of  the  popular  literature  type,  its 
career  of  five  years  is  rated  as  the  most  significant  of  efforts  at 
periodical  publishing  in  Chicago  prior  to  those  of  the  present 
decade.  Its  popular  character  is  to  be  seen  by  dipping  into  a  file 
at  the  Public  Library.  For  example,  a  serial  story  by  E.  P.  Roe, 
entitled  "  An  Original  Belle,"  is  to  be  found  in  its  pages. 

The  field  from  which  Mr.  Wakeman  gathered  serials,  short 
stories,  poems,  and  articles  was  not  confined  to  the  city  limits,  nor 
by  the  boundaries  of  the  Middle  West,  nor  yet  by  those  of 
America.  The  management  of  the  Current  was  the  first  among 
Chicago  publishers  to  seek  manuscripts  from  England.  While 
not  so  well  favored  with  results  as  has  been  the  editor  of  the 
Red  Book  of  the  present  day,  the  effort  shows  a  metropolitan 
breadth  approached  by  Chicago  publishers  in  the  eighties. 


522  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

In  securing  contributions  from  American  authors  of  estab- 
lished reputation  the  Current  was  more  successful.  James  B. 
Cable,  with  "  Southern  Silhouettes,"  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  and 
Joaquin  E.  Miller  were  among  the  contributors.  In  its  early 
career  the  Current  was  reported  to  have  $100,000.00  worth  of 
excellent  manuscripts  pigeon-holed.  From  the  first,  however, 
Chicago  men  were  important  contributors.  Eugene  Field,  Ernest 
McGaffey,  Colonel  William  Lightfoot  Visscher,  and  John  Mc- 
Govem  were  among  them.  Field  played  with  the  pretensions  of 
the  editor  of  the  Current  in  the  report  of  a  "Convention  of  West- 
ern Writers"  at  Indianapolis,  where  he  said  literary  workers 
would  be  asked :  "But  have  you  never  written  anything  for  the 
Current f'  He  remarked  that  the  implication  was:  "If  you 
have,  you  must  be  all  right." 

In  1885  Mr.  John  McGovern,  a  vivid  imaginative  writer, 
who  honestly  believes  that  the  "West  is  in  literary  rebellion 
against  the  East,"  and  that  "  General  McClurg's  chief  office  was 
to  command  a  literary  blockhouse  and  keep  down  the  Indians  of 
the  frontier,"  became  editor  of  the  Current.  The  periodical 
became  an  avowed  exponent  of  the  literary  interest  of  the  people 
in  Chicago  and  the  West,  and  their  support  was  asked.  As  an 
experiment  to  see  if  such  support  could  not  be  secured,  in  1885  a 
beautiful  Easter  edition  was  prepared.  With  the  enterprise 
backed  by  Mr.  George  Wiggs,  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
interested  in  the  patronage  of  local  letters,  100,000  copies,  four 
times  the  normal  number,  were  printed.  The  paper  bill  alone 
was  $3,000.    But  the  bulk  of  the  issue  went  to  the  ragman. 

Under  Mr.  Wakeman's  administration  the  circulation  and 
advertising  had  been  sufficient  to  give  promise  of  success.  With 
the  magnetism  of  enthusiasm,  Mr.  Wakeman  had  interested  able 
financial  supporters.  But  by  the  end  of  his  second  year  the 
finances  were  in  a  tangle.  Mrs.  Starrett,  who  characterizes  the 
Current  as  "a  flash  in  the  pan,"  says  that  Mr.  Wakeman  pro- 
posed to  sell  the  Current  to  the  owners  of  the  Weekly  Magaj:ine, 
which  had  grown  in  metropolitan  character  and  was  continued 
until  1884.  The  proposition  was  rejected.  Mr.  Wakeman  left 
town.     The  Current,  embarrassed  financially  and  narrowed  to 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  S^3 

"its  chosen  field  as  a  representative  of  western  literature" 
dragged  out  a  profitless  existence  until  1888,  when  it  was 
merged  with  America. 

In  the  meantime,  Literary  Life,  a  contemporary  of  the 
Current,  attracted  attention.  It  appeared  in  regulation  form, 
and  was  advertised  as  "an  illustrated  magazine  for  the  people; 
only  $1  a  year,  ten  cents  a  copy."  Charles  Dudley  Warner  was 
quoted  as  having  written  to  the  publisher  saying :  "  I  am  amazed 
that  you  can  afford  to  publish  such  a  very  handsome  periodical  at 
so  little  cost  to  the  subscriber." 

There  was  nothing  local  about  the  contents  of  Literary  Life. 
Essays  on  literary  topics,  biographical  sketches  and  portraits  of 
well-known  authors  in  America  and  England,  with  engravings 
to  show  their  "homes  and  haunts,"  appear  to  have  made  up  the 
material  sought  for  the  magazine,  which  also  announced  a 
somewhat  broader  ambition — namely,  to  be  "the  Century  of  the 
West."  To  what  degree  the  aspirations  it  advertised  were 
realized  cannot  be  ascertained  in  Chicago.  There  is  no  reliquary 
file  in  the  libraries  here. 

The  name  of  Rose  Elizabeth  Cleveland,  sister  of  President 
Grover  Cleveland,  was  conspicuously  connected  with  Literary 
Life.  Miss  Cleveland  was  the  editor  of  some  of  the  early  num- 
bers. But  although  a  Boston  organ  was  quoted  as  saying, 
''Literary  Life  helps  to  make  Chicago  one  of  the  literary  centers 
of  the  country,"  Miss  Cleveland  never  came  to  this  literary  center. 
All  her  work  as  editor  was  done  at  her  home  in  New  York  state. 
Perhaps  this  arrangement  for  long-range  editing  may  be  inter- 
preted as  a  sign  of  a  broad,  metropolitan  outlook  on  the  part  of 
A.  P.  T.  Elder,  the  publisher. 

Miss  Cleveland,  in  a  letter  recently  sent  for  use  in  these 
papers,  said : 

I  was  interested  in  Literary  Life  for  three  months,  and  then  dropped  it 
because  of  a  wide  divergence  between  myself  and  its  business  manager  as  to 
policy  in  its  management.  During  the  three  months  in  which  I  did  my  rather 
amateurish  "  editing "  it  was  quite  successful,  and  would  in  the  hands  of  a 
more  discriminating  manager,  or  a  less  fastidious  editor,  have  been  a  profitable 
enterprise. 


524  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  close  of  its  career  was  chronicled  by  Field  in  1887,  with  the 
following  paragraph : 

For  the  information  of  our  public  we  will  say  that  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
is  a  magazine  published  in  Boston,  being  to  that  intelligent  and  refined  com- 
munity what  the  Literary  Life  was  to  Chicago  before  a  Fourth  Ward  con- 
stable achieved  its  downfall  with  a  writ  of  replevin. 

The  efforts  of  the  editor-publishers  of  America,  the  literary- 
political  weekly,  1888-91,  are  of  more  interest  in  many  ways  than 
any  others  by  periodical  publishers  at  Chicago  in  the  eighties. 
Mr.  Slason  Thompson  and  Mr.  Hobart  Chatfield-Taylor  were 
the  founders  of  America,  and  Mr.  Thompson  stuck  to  it  as  editor 
and  publisher  to  the  end  of  its  career.  At  the  time  of  its  founding, 
Mr.  Thompson,  as  he  is  today,  was  a  strong  journalist.  Mr. 
Chatfield-Taylor,  now  a  novelist  and  prominent  society  man,  was 
then  a  recent  college  graduate  of  independent  means,  just  begin- 
ning a  career  of  literary  endeavor. 

Mr.  Thompson  is  one  of  the  men  drawn  to  Chicago  by  the 
growing  importance  of  the  north-central  American  metropolis. 
Educated  for  the  bar  at  the  University  of  New  Brunswick,  ad- 
mitted to  practice  in  that  Canadian  province,  and  later  to  the  bar 
in  California,  he  had  entered  journalism  at  San  Francisco,  served 
on  the  New  York  Tribune,  and,  after  coming  to  Chicago  as  agent 
for  the  New  York  Associated  Press,  had  been  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  Chicago  Herald,  and  had  held  numerous  important  editorial 
positions.  While  in  San  Francisco,  Mr.  Thompson  had  been  an 
admirer  of  the  irgonaut,  published  there  by  Frank  Pixley.  He 
believed  that  if  a  serious  literary  periodical  published  on  the 
Pacific  coast  could  succeed,  one  brought  out  in  Chicago  should 
surely  do  so.  Mr.  Thompson  was  one  of  the  "  Saints  and 
Sinners,"  an  intimate  friend  of  Field,  and  in  later  years  the 
collator  of  some  of  that  author's  writings.  In  "  Sharps  and 
Flats,"  Field,  referring  to  an  imaginary  sale  of  pews  in  the 
famous  corner,  made  the  following  remark : 

Mr.  Slason  Thompson,  boiling  over  with  indignation,  declared  that  if  the 
Rev.  Mr  Bristol  and  General  McClurg  intended  to  form  a  trust  on  pews, 
they  must  expect  to  feel  the  castigatory  torments  of  the  nimble  pen  and  sar- 
castic pencil  wielded  by  the  facile  editor  of  America. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  525 

In  America  Mr.  Thompson  was  strong  in  writing  castigations. 
His  supreme  interest  was  in  political  questions,  and  he  made  them 
all  hinge  on  one  —  that  of  immigration. 

Mr.  Taylor  had  just  come  home  to  Chicago  from  Cornell 
University,  where  he  had  been  connected  with  the  undergraduate 
journals.  Today  he  laughingly  says :  "  Having  been  on  the  col- 
lege papers,  I  thought  I  could  set  the  world  on  fire."  Mr.  Taylor 
was  not  greatly  interested  in  political  and  sociological  questions. 
His  supreme  interest,  as  an  editor,  was  in  literary  form. 

Although  the  endeavor  to  combine  the  literary  and  political 
interest  was  a  striking  phenomenon  in  America,  during  the  first 
few  months  a  remarkably  strong,  cosmopolitan  literary  character 
in  a  large  part  of  its  contents  was  the  feature  which  attracted 
wide  attention.  The  greatest  array  of  contributions  from  noted 
American  authors  ever  secured  for  a  Chicago  periodical  was 
spread  in  the  pages  of  America  during  the  first  few  weeks  of  its 
publication.  Some,  also,  were  from  England.  The  file  in  the 
Chicago  Public  Library  would  please  any  reader  fond  of  the 
works  of  American  authors.  A  poem  by  James  Russell  Lowell, 
contributions  from  Charles  Dudley  Warner  and  Julian  Haw- 
thorne, and  an  instalment  of  a  serial  by  Frank  R.  Stockton  are 
among  the  contents  of  the  first  number.  Hawthorne  conducted 
a  department  of  literature  for  many  weeks,  and  was  succeeded  in 
that  by  Maurice  Thompson.  Andrew  Lang,  the  English  essayist, 
was  a  frequent  contributor.  Swinburne  was  among  the  authors 
of  poems.  Poetry  by  Holmes,  Scollard,  Morris,  McGrath,  Riley, 
Garland,  and  Waterloo  was  printed.  Eugene  Field  wrote  his 
"Little  Boy  Blue"  for  America.  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  and 
Louise  Chandler  Moulton  were  among  the  contributors.  The 
aim  of  Mr.  Taylor  was  not  to  secure  material  with  which  to  make 
the  popular  type  of  magazine,  but  to  get  for  America  the  best  of 
the  current  American  literary  output.  Fabulous  prices  were  paid 
for  these  contributions.  For  Bret  Harte's  "Jim"  the  sum  of 
$500  was  given.  Mr.  Taylor  is  said  to  have  sunk  from  $50,000 
to  $100,000  in  the  America  venture;  and  a  good  part  of  that  sum 
went  for  manuscripts.     America's  outlook  over  American  litera- 


526  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

ture  was  broader  than  that  of  any  literan-  magazine  containing 
fiction  and  poetry  undertaken  in  Chicago  during  the  eighties. 

The  publication  of  this  representative  American  Hterary  out- 
put, secured  at  such  extravagant  prices,  was  continued  for  only  a 
few  weeks.  It  did  not  pay.  But  few  copies  of  America  circulated 
east  of  the  Alleghanies.  *'  Literar\-  trade- winds  blow  from  the 
east,"  says  Mr.  Thompson  today.  The  circulation  of  America 
was  for  the  most  part  western,  and  at  no  time  did  it  exceed 
10,000.  After  the  period  of  high  prices  for  contributions.  Mr. 
Taylor  wrote  nearly  all  of  the  literan,-  contents  under  a  series  of 
noms  de  plume.  In  recounting  this  part  of  his  experiences  with 
America,  Mr.  Taylor  said  :  ''  That  is  where  I  gained  my  literary 
training." 

Two  local  writers  who  have  since  attained  national  promi- 
nence in  lines  of  artistic  production  were  assistant  editors  of 
America  during  parts  of  its  cpxeer  as  a  training  school  — 
Ranald  De  Koven,  composer,  and  Harr\-  B.  Smith,  light-opera 
librettist  Writing  as  ''Quaver,"  ^Ir.  De  Koven  conducted  a 
department  of  musical  criticism.  Of  Mr.  De  Koven's  column, 
Bel  ford's  Maga::ine,  a  Chicago  contemporary  of  America,  said: 

His  notes  will  be  read  with  much  interest,  for  he  is  an  eminently  qualined 
musician;  a  graduate  of  Oxford  University,  Elngland,  and  essentially  cosmo- 
politan as  regards  his  education. 

Mr.  Smith,  who  was  beginning  his  literan,-  work,  was  at  first 
listed  as  assistant  editor  and  later  as  business  manager,  although 
Slason  Thompson  says  the  periodical  never  had  any  business 
management  in  the  present-day  sense.  Mr.  Smith  was  a  frequent 
contributor  of  verse. 

While  starting  out  with  a  notable  character  as  to  genuine 
American  literature,  America  from  the  first  was  distinguished  for 
the  \-irile  political  interest  and  the  vigorous  personality  of  Mr. 
Thompson,  which  stood  out  in  its  pages  most  emphatically.  The 
very  title,  while  suggesting  the  literary  interest  was  conspicuous 
for  its  political  significance,  and  a  sub-title  dec\a.red  America  to  be 
"  a  journal  for  Americans."  Articles  by  Seth  Low  on  "  American 
Patriotism,"  and  by  Theodore  Roosevelt  on  "Americans  Past 
and  Present,  and  the  Americanization  of  Foreigners."  appeared 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  S^7 

in  the  first  numbers.  In  editorials,  and  in  a  department  headed 
"  Americanisms,"  Mr.  Thompson  hammered  away  continually 
in  favor  of  the  restriction  of  immigration  and  of  limiting  the 
influence  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church  in  American  affairs. 

The  literary  character  of  the  weekly  faded  away  with  the 
twenty-third  number.  By  mutual  agreement,  Mr.  Taylor  retired, 
and  Mr.  Thompson  became  sole  editor  and  publisher.  In  an 
editorial  announcement,  Mr.  Thompson  remarked  that  there 
would  be  "no  deviation  from  the  high  literary  entertainment," 
and  then  laid  all  emphasis  on  a  statement  that  America  would 

continue  to  urge  the  restriction  of  all  immigration  by  consular  inspection  and 
a  per  capita  tax,  the  making  of  citizenship  essential  to  the  privilege  of  suffrage, 
and  the  limitation  of  the  right  to  vote  to  citizens  who  can  read  and  write; 

and  other  propositions  for  the  protection  of  "  America's  free 
schools,  American  morality,  and  American  nationality."  To 
enforce  these  ideas,  in  some  of  the  later  numbers  there  was  a  use 
of  cartoons,  the  first  and  only  illustrations  published  in  America. 
One  of  these  was  sublined,  "  America  for  the  Irish."  Another,  a 
lurid  thing  with  much  black  ink,  done  by  the  famous  Thomas 
Nast,  was  called  "  Foreign  Thrones  among  Us."  But  the 
advocacy  of  such  sentiments  did  not  prove  popular  enough  to 
bring  large  business  returns,  and  with  the  number  of  Septem- 
ber 24,  1891,  the  transfer  of  America  and  all  that  pertained  to  it, 
except  the  "  personal  opinions  of  the  editor,"  was  announced  by 
Mr.  Thompson.  In  penning  his  farewell  editorial  he  said :  "  In 
respect  to  several  subjects  too  much  slighted  in  the  daily  press, 
America  has  been  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness;  "  and  declared 
that  the  policy  had  been  to  put  forth  "  a  firm  but  moderate  opposi- 
tion to  the  political  and  educational  policy  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
church  in  the  United  States,"  and  to  give  expression  to  faith  in 
the  American  common  school  as  an  "alembic"  for  the  varied 
nationalities  represented  in  American  population. 

While  the  mixture  of  representative  American  literature  and 
national  political  policy  in  America  makes  it  stand  as  an  index 
of  the  growing  metropolitan  spirit  of  Chicago  in  the  eighties,  it 
was  this  mixture,  and  the  gradual  increase  of  the  political  element 


528  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

—  the  advocacy  of  a  cause  —  which  brought  failure  to  America. 
Mr.  Taylor  says : 

Besides  our  inexperience,  the  fact  that  the  periodical  was  published  in 
Chicago  and  not  in  New  York  kept  it  from  gaining  a  sure  foothold. 

Mr.  Thompson,  also,  says : 

Of  course,  there  was  a  prejudice  against  a  journal  from  Chicago;  and  the 
labor  organizations  here  made  prices  of  printing  higher  than  in  New  York. 
But  these  magazine  failures  are  not  peculiar  to  Chicago.  There  has  been  no 
greater  extinction  here  than  those  of  Putnam's  and  the  Eclectic  in  New  York. 

Nevertheless,  the  chief  reason  for  the  disappearance  of  America 
remains  the  decline  of  its  appeal  to  the  pure  literary  interest,  and 
the  phenomenal  persistence  and  increase  in  its  appeal  to  interest 
in  one  political  idea.  In  forsaking  literature  to  follow  the  anti- 
immigration  will-o'-the-wisp,  America  followed  the  line  of 
extinction  taken  in  Chicago  in  the  earliest  period  by  the  Literary 
Budget,  founded  in  1852  and  transformed  in  1855  to  the  short- 
lived Native  Citizen.  It  is  difficult  to  make  a  literary  tree  grow 
out  of  a  political  platform. 

That  America  in  dying  was  transferred  to  the  Graphic  was  in 
line  with  the  developments  of  periodical  publishing  at  Chcago  in 
the  decade  following  the  eighties.  The  Graphic  was  an  Illustrated 
weekly  of  about  the  same  age  as  America.  "  With  the  World's 
Columbian  Exposition  coming,"  said  America's  editorial  valedic- 
tory, "  during  the  next  two  years,  the  Graphic,  having  the  facili- 
ties, will  render  valuable  service  to  Chicago." 

Other  weeklies  with  metropolitan  earmarks  springing  up  in 
the  eighties  were  those  of  the  smart  variety.  These  contained  a 
melange  of  clever  comment  on  current  events  and  local  society 
news,  verse,  and  other  material  of  interest  for  its  form  of  expres- 
sion. The  Rambler,  started  in  1884,  by  Reginald  De  Koven  and 
Harry  B.  Smith,  and  carried  on  until  1886  by  Elliott  Flower,  was 
the  most  interesting  of  these  weeklies.  It  was  "  A  Journal  of 
Men,  Manners,  and  Things."  Mr.  Flower,  in  an  interview  for 
these  papers,  said : 

We  wanted  to  do  for  Chicago  what  Life  does  for  New  York.  The 
manager  of  the  Western  News  Co.  said :  "  Put  a  New  York  date  line  on  it, 
or  the  West  won't  take  it."     We  did  not  do  so.     But  he  was  right. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  529 

The  Rambler  never  secured  more  than  5,000  readers,  and  the 
experiment  cost  its  promoters  several  thousand  dollars.  Its  chief 
result  of  permanence  was  the  training  Mr.  Flower  had  through 
it  for  writing  the  humorous  sketches  and  fiction  which  he  has 
since  contributed  to  magazine-  and  book-publishers  elsewhere. 
Vanity  Fair  was  the  name  of  a  "  literary  and  society  weekly " 
which  was  of  sufficient  interest  to  be  listed  in  the  newspaper 
annuals  for  1885  and  1886.  Appleton's  In  the  Swim,  a  "literary, 
travel,  and  society  weekly,"  engrafted  on  an  advertising  trav- 
elers' bureau,  flourished  from  1887  to  1891.  And  a  "pictorial 
weekly  "  having  the  name  Life  was  attempted  in  1889,  but  did  not 
survive.  A  monthly  in  regular  magazine  form,  designated  the 
Society  Magazine,  and  filled  with  selections  from  the  periodicals 
of  England,  came  out  during  the  entire  calendar  year  1888,  and 
left  a  file  in  the  Public  Library. 

A  most  creditable  monthly  for  "gentlemen  of  wealth  and 
culture,"  as  its  advertising  read,  was  Wildwood's  Magazine, 
edited  by  "Will  Wildwood"  (Fred  E.  Pond),  and  undertaken  in 
Chicago  in  1888.  During  its  first  year  it  was  devoted  to  "the 
higher  literature  of  manly  sport."  "  To  readers  seeking  reflection 
of  the  charms  of  woodcraft  we  offer  the  work  of  contributors 
whose  genial  essays  partake  of  the  breezy  character  of  forest  and 
field,"  said  the  initial  number,  which  commented  on  the  expansion 
of  the  literature  of  sport  during  the  twenty  years  just  then  past. 
Perusal  of  a  file  in  the  Newberry  Library  shows  that  the  magazine 
contained  charming  tales,  essays,  and  memoirs  of  sportsmen. 
Both  in  subject-matter  and  in  form  its  pages  made  a  pleasing 
appeal  to  the  play  instinct,  which  some  of  the  authoritative  psy- 
chologists say  is  essentially  the  same  as  the  aesthetic  interest.  But 
at  the  end  of  a  year,  Charles  Hallock,  the  former  editor  of  Forest 
and  Stream,  became  associated  in  the  editorship,  a  philosophy  of 
the  serious  interest  in  outdoor  activity  was  announced,  the  name 
was  changed  to  Recreation,  and  "  geological  picnics  "  were  organ- 
ized from  a  branch  office  at  Washington.  This  brought  public 
ridicule.  An  editorial  retort  in  the  magazine  listed  the  national 
capital    as    "the    graveyard    of    journalism,"    and    a    delightful 


530  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

aesthetic  publication  of  high  hterary  quality  went  to  pieces  on 
the  dry  rocks  of  a  knowledge  interest. 

A  phase  of  the  increasing  complexity  in  the  character  of 
Chicago  —  complexity  growing  out  of  the  industrial  magnitude 
of  the  city  in  the  eighties  —  was  reflected  in  the  starting  of  several 
magazines  devoted  to  serious  subjects  but  appealing  to  the  popu- 
lar literary  interest  through  the  form  of  essays,  supplemented 
with  fiction  and,  in  some,  with  illustrations.  Questions  on  the 
relations  of  capital  and  labor  began  to  be  the  subject  of  much  talk 
and  action  in  Chicago  —  questions  whose  consideration  has  since 
grown  to  such  importance  here  as  to  make  the  city  one  of  the 
caldrons  in  which  much  of  social  import  is  seething.  In  1886  a 
violent  manifestation  of  this  came  in  the  anarchist  riots  at  Hay- 
market  Square,  which,  it  may  be  mentioned  incidentally,  were 
pictured  with  large  wood  cuts  in  the  Illustrated  Graphic  News, 
published  simultaneously  in  Chicago,  New  York,  Cincinnati, 
Detroit,  and  Kansas  City,  in  that  year.  But  the  riots  and  the 
execution  of  the  anarchists  were  merely  the  extreme  expression 
of  elements  constantly  stimulating  serious  thought. 

A  monthly  magazine  called  the  Commonwealth,  started  in 
1888,  was  recorded  in  the  newspaper  annuals  until  1892.  But 
Bel  ford's  Magazine,  of  which  No.  i,  June,  1888,  bore  the  imprint 
"  Chicago,  New  York,  and  San  Francisco,"  is  the  most  significant 
serious  periodical  of  the  decade  which  is  represented  among  the 
files.  It  appears  that,  during  its  second  year,  the  periodical  was 
issued  from  New  York,  that  in  1892  its  headquarters  were  moved 
back  to  Chicago,  and  that  it  died  in  1893.  A  statement  on 
American  life  and  serious  periodicals  was  made  by  the  editor,  in 
June,  1889.     In  an  editorial  he  said: 

When  the  best  blood  of  Europe  sought  these  shores  as  laborers  or  pirates, 
they  sought  to  conquer  a  continent.  The  victory  achieved  between  the  first 
landing  and  now  is  simply  a  marvel  of  industry,  endurance,  energy,  and 
enterprise.  In  this  struggle  of  man  versus  matter  we  have  become  materialists. 
Out  of  sixty  odd  millions  of  population,  about  three  million  read  books,  and 
these  mainly  novels.  To  attempt  the  publication  of  a  monthly  devoted  to  the 
discussion  of  grave  subjects,  to  be  to  the  thoughtful  reformer  of  this  country 
what  the  Westminster  of  London  has  been  to  the  Liberals  of  England,  would 
be    commercial    insanity.      Successful    American    magazines    are    devoted    to 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  53 1 

pictorial  exhibits,  which,  aUhough  they  are  artistically  done,  yet  make  only 
picture-books,  to  be  looked  at,  not  read. 

The  file  shows,  however,  that  in  Belford's  Magazine  an 
endeavor  to  popularize  serious  subjects  was  made.  On  the  occa- 
sion of  locating  in  Chicago  again  in  1892,  the  magazine  editorially- 
declared  that  "the  literature  of  the  West  has  been  acted,  it  has 
been  done"  —  not  written. 

Another  type  of  serious  magazine  broadly  to  be  classed  as 
literary,  which  grew  up  in  the  eighties  at  Chicago,  was  the  home- 
study  journal.  Some  of  these  were :  the  Correspondence  Uni- 
versity Journal,  monthly,  1884-86;  the  University,  1885-86, 
biweekly,  claiming  to  be  a  successor  to  the  Weekly  Magazine; 
the  Home  Library  Magazine,  monthly,  1887;  and  the  National 
Magazine,  published  by  a  so-called  "  National  University  "  from 
1889  to  1894. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO.     V 


HERBERT  E.  FLEMING 
University  of  Chicago 


V.   ESTHETIC    PERIODICALS    OF    THE    WORLD'S    FAIR     CITY 

1890-1900 

"All  this  time  there  had  been  building  the  beautiful  city  of  white  palaces 
on  the  lake,  and  it  was  now  open  for  the  world  to  see  what  Chicago  had 
dreamed  and  created.  Although  it  had  made  me  impatient  to  have  Mr. 
Dround  spend  on  it  his  energy  that  was  needed  in  his  own  business,  now 
that  it  was  accomplished,  in  all  its  beauty  and  grandeur,  it  filled  me  with 
admiration. 

"There  were  few  hours  that  I  could  spend  in  its  enjoyment,  but  I  remem- 
ber one  evening  after  my  return  from  the  East,  when  we  had  a  family 
party  at  the  Fair.  May  and  Will  were  spending  their  vacation  with  us  during 
the  hot  weather,  and  the  four  of  us,  having  had  our  dinner,  took  an 
electric  launch  and  glided  through  the  lagoons  beneath  the  lofty  peristyle  out 
to  the  lake,  which  was  as  quiet  as  a  pond.  The  long  lines  of  white  build- 
ings were  ablaze  with  countless  lights ;  the  music  from  the  bands  scattered 
over  the  grounds  floated  softly  out  upon  the  water;  all  else  was  silent  and 
dark.  In  that  lovely  hour,  soft  and  gentle  as  was  ever  a  summer  night,  the 
toil  and  trouble  of  men,  the  fear  that  was  gripping  men's  hearts  in  the 
market,  fell  away  from  me,  and  in  its  place  came  Faith.  The  people  who 
could  dream  this  vision  and  make  it  real,  those  people  from  all  part?  of  the 
land  who  thronged  here  day  after  day — their  sturdy  wills  and  strong  hearts 
would  rise  above  failure,  would  press  on  to  greater  victories  than  this 
triumph  of  beauty — victories  greater  than  the  world  had  yet  witnessed !" 
E.  V.  Harrington,  packer,  in  The  Memoirs  of  an  American  Citizen,  by 
Robert  Herrick,  1905. 

Basking  in  a  new  light  reflected  over  their  trade  city  by  the 
"White  City"  of  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition,  the  men 
attempting  to  publish  periodicals  at  Chicago  during  the  nineties 
opened  their  eyes  to  many  new  influences.  First  they  adopted 
the  appeal  of  pictorial  art.  The  World's  Fair  was  a  magnificent 
picture.  Graphic  presentation  was  the  form  used  to  attract 
aesthetic  interest  in  several  journals  begun  just  before,  during, 
and  after  1893.     The  copper-plate  half-tone  did  not  come  into 

784 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  785 

general  commercial  use  until  that  year.  The  cheapening  of  this 
process  started  the  wave  of  popular  illustrated  magazines  from 
other  centers,  which  has  since  become  an  inundation.  But  in 
Chicago  this  turn  toward  emphasis  on  illustrations  was  quickened 
by  the  Fair,  which  even  prosaic  visitors  from  western  prairie 
soil  likened  to  the  "heavenly  vision."  Men  ambitious  to  be 
publishers  went  into  ecstasies  over  its  suggestions.  In  imagina- 
tion they  saw  heaps  of  gold  as  the  reward  for  publishing  pic- 
tures, supplemented  with  literary  material. 

Besides  the  effect  of  the  panorama,  there  was  the  finer 
influence  from  the  exhibitions  of  the  fine  arts.  The  subtleties  of 
architectural  decoration,  even  though  done  in  ephemeral  staff; 
the  grace  of  form  from  the  hands  of  the  great  sculptors,  although 
the  statues  were  but  casts;  and,  above  all,  the  original  paintings 
from  the  brushes  of  Old  and  New  World  masters,  hanging  in 
hall  after  hall  of  the  Fine  Arts  Building,  revealed  to  the  people 
of  Chicago  and  the  West  the  beauty  of  universal  art.  Foreign 
members  of  the  artist  group  inspired  in  their  Chicago  hosts  en- 
thusiasm for  art  in  all  of  its  manifestations;  and  the  judging  for 
awards  stimulated  the  habit  of  criticism  on  the  basis  of  merit, 
tending  to  suppress  praise  from  local  pride.  Magazines  devoted 
to  the  fine  arts,  and  literary  magazines  edited  in  the  spirit  of  the 
artist  class,  followed  the  Fair. 

The  World's  Columbian  Exposition  alsoi  brought  historic  per- 
spective to  the  new  and  still  crude  western  metropolis.  On  one 
bright  day  during  that  summer  the  vessels  from  Chicago  harbors 
were,  as  usual,  marking  the  sky-line  of  the  lake  to  the  east  with 
their  clouds  of  smoke,  the  pennants  of  commerce.  Three  caravels, 
picturesque  imitations  of  those  in  which  Columbus  had  sailed  to 
America  in  1492,  and,  like  those  of  the  discoverer,  having  come 
slowly  over  from  old  Spain,  moved  past  the  lake  craft  and  into  the 
Jackson  Park  lagoon,  where  they  still  stand  moored  today.  These 
caravels,  and  the  exposition  in  nearly  all  its  sections,  gave  to  the 
people  of  the  new  western  market-metropolis  the  vivid  impres- 
sion that  the  life  of  their  community  is  but  a  chapter  in  the  epic 
of  world-wide  civilization.     Nearly  all  the  general  literary  and 


786  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

pictorial  magazines  established  in  Chicago  during  the  Fair 
decade  showed  the  effect  of  this  impression. 

Finally,  for  a  season  the  World's  Fair  transformed  Chicago 
the  inland  center  into  Chicago  the  cosmopolitan  center.  This 
city,  being  far  from  a  seaport,  normally  cannot  have  in  it  a 
kaleidoscopic  company  of  transients  from  all  the  world,  such  as 
assembles  daily  in  New  York,  London,  and  Paris.  But  for  the 
one  brief  summer  the  down-town  streets  and  the  wide  ways  at 
the  Fair  grounds  were  thronged  with  visitors,  not  merely  from 
many  localities  of  the  United  States,  but  from  all  countries.  On 
the  Midway  Plaisance,  a  boulevard  of  the  nations  and  races, 
bordered  for  a  mile  by  groups  of  the  natives  of  Europe  and  of 
the  Orient  in  settings  from  their  distant  towns  and  villages,  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women  from  everywhere  touched  shoulders 
in  one  common  interest.  Not  one  of  the  seventy  periodicals  of 
aesthetic  character  undertaken  in  Chicago  during  the  decade  of 
this  cosmopolitan  gathering  contained  the  word  "western"  in  its 
title.  In  every  period  before  this  there  had  been  "western" 
literary  journals  attempted  at  Chicago.  But  the  World's  Fair 
made  for  a  breadth  of  view  which  repressed  the  western  spirit. 
All  types  of  literary  and  artistic  periodicals  became  more  cosmo- 
politan in  their  outlook,  and  in  some  of  the  general  literary  maga- 
zines of  the  decade  unique  efforts  at  the  world-wide  character 
were  made.  During  the  thirteen  years  since  the  exposition 
was  a  reality,  the  tradition  oi  it  has  had  a  vital  influence  on 
Chicago.  But,  £.s  with  reading  a  novel,  the  effects  are  most 
vivid  while  one  is  going  through  its  pages  and  just  after  the  book 
is  closed,  so  the  enlarging  influence  of  the  World's  Fair  was  felt 
most  forcibly  by  Chicago  publishers  during  the  year  of  the  Fair 
and  immediately  after  the  closing  of  its  gates. 

Illustrated  journals,  in  form  though  not  in  periodicity  like 
Harper's  Weekly,  were  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  mushroom 
periodicals  at  Chicago  in  the  first  few  years  of  the  World's  Fair 
decade.  In  most  publications  illustrations  are  used  to  supplement 
literary  features.  In  these  journals  material  in  printed  form 
designed  to  give  literary  entertainment  was  used  as  an  auxiliary 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  787 

to  the  illustrations.  The  most  important  of  these  periodicals 
were  HaUigan's  Illustrated  World's  Fair,  Campbell's  Illustrated 
Columbian,  and  the  Graphic. 

The  first  number  of  HaUigan's  Illustrated  World's  Fair,  put 
out  for  promotion,  appeared  in  1890.  Mr,  Jewell  Halligan,  its 
originator,  came  to  Chicago  from  Denver,  and  in  this  advance 
issue  announced  plans  for  a  most  pretentious  publication.  The 
second  number  was  published  in  August  of  the  next  year,  and  the 
periodical  was  issued  monthly  until  December,  1893. 

"To  carry  the  undeniable  news  of  the  eye  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,"  was  one  phase  of  the  publishing  policy  announced  by  Hal- 
ligan's  paper.  Its  pages  were  of  unusually  large  size.  Most  of 
them  were  filled  with  half-tone  illustrations.  An  advertisement, 
in  1893,  said  that  the  magazine  was  "the  first  to  exclude  all  other 
forms  of  picture  save  photographs  on  copper  called  half-tones." 
Undeniably  the  illustrations,  done  by  the  new  process  and  printed 
on  extra-fine  paper,  were  well  executed.  The  journal's  pictorial 
record  of  the  Fair  was  so  complete  that  two  editions  of  extra 
copies  were  printed  for  sale  in  bound  volumes.  In  this  form 
the  magazines  made  such  an  attractive  World's  Fair  picture-book 
that  one  set  was  added  to  the  collection  of  volumes  in  the  art- 
room  of  the  Chicago  Public  Library. 

A  distinct  literary  flavor  was  to  be  found  in  the  printed 
material  on  the  pages  containing  the  smaller  illustrations.  This 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  John  McGovem  was  the  editor.  Of 
an  ebullient,  imaginative  turn  of  mind,  a  reader  who  has  roamed 
over  many  fields  of  world-lore  and  literature,  Mr.  McGovern  was 
spurred  to  most  characteristic  endeavors  by  the  spirit  of  the 
World's  Fair  times,  when  all  the  currents  of  thought  ran  large. 
Having  graduated  into  newspaper  work  and  letters  from  the 
printer's  case,  he  had  written  ten  volumes  of  essays,  poems,  and 
novels.  All  of  these  had  been  published  at  Chicago.  And  some 
of  the  exposition  directors  who  had  been  patrons  of  these  pro- 
ductions had  urged  him  to  take  the  editorship  of  HaUigan's  Illus- 
trated World's  Fair.  Always  an  advocate  of  "western  litera- 
ture," he  spoke  of  editor  and  publisher  as  "western  men,"  and 


788  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

announced  that  they  would  "strive  to  doi  their  work  in  their  own 
way,  aping  no  fashion  of  any  other  region."  Declaring  that 
"original  literature  is  original  literature,"  and  that  "the  fleeting, 
capricious  thoughts  of  a  creator  lie  betewen  him  and  the  Great 
Creator,"  Mr.  McGovern  made  the  following  signed  statement 
concerning  the  contributions  literary  men  might  send  him :  "I 
will  not  edit  their  copy.  This  pledge  I  kept  sacred  in  The  Cur- 
rent; it  will  not  be  more  difficult  to  make  it  more  sacred  in 
maturer  years."  Although  asking  for  "a  pleasant  godspeed  for 
Western  Literature,"  Mr.  McGoA^ern  voiced  the  larger  outlook, 
calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Fair  was  not  Chicago's,  but 
the  world's,  and  declaring  that  the  journal  was  to  have  dignity 
and  "to  perfect  a  proper  subjective." 

Literary  material  of  more  interest  from  the  ideas  in  the 
subject-matter  than  from  form  of  presentation  was  the  result  of 
this  policy.  An  excellent  little  poem  on  some  theme  suggested 
by  thoughts  of  Christopher  Columbus  appeared  in  nearly  every 
number.  For  instance,  "A  Mother's  Song  in  Spain,  A.  D.  1493," 
was  contributed  by  William  S.  Lord,  an  Evanston  business  man 
who  has  done  some  writing  and  independent  publishing  from  time 
to  time.  E.  Hough,  Ernest  McGaffey,  and  Charles  Eugene 
Banks  were  among  those  who  wrote  Columbus  verses  for  the 
Illustrated  World's  Fair.  Opie  Read^  of  whom  Mr.  McGovern 
is  an  intimate  friend,  contributed  a  sketch  entitled  "Old  Billy 
at  the  World's  Fair."  The  literary  ministers,  David  Swing, 
Robert  Mclntyre  and  W.  T.  Meloy,  wrote  many  essays  for 
the  journal,  and  Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll  supplied  an  article 
captioned  "The  Effect  of  the  World's  Fair  on  Human  Progress." 
A  total  of  ninety-nine  contributors  was  listed.  While  many 
were  Chicago  men,  not  a  few  in  the  list  were  residents  of  other 
places  in  America,  and  some,  including  Alphonse  Daudet,  of 
distant  countries.  In  all  the  contributions  and  editorials  the 
western  element  was  illuminated  with  league-like  leaps  of  the 
imagination,  showing  appreciation  of  historic  perspective. 

A  general  world's  magazine  was  expected  to  be  the  out- 
growth of  Halligan's  Illustrated  World's  Fair.     In  the  Decern- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  789 

ber,  1893,  number  the  publisher  announced  that  the  name  of  the 
magazine  would  thereafter  be  the  Illustrated  World,  to  be  a 
literary  journal  containing  "the  larger  views  of  the  earth's 
surface."  But  that  number  was  the  last.  Mr.  Halligan  lost 
some  $30,000  in  the  Illustrated  World's  Fair  venture.  The  cost 
of  the  extra-large  half-tones  was  too  great  to  be  easily  met  with 
receipts  from  subscriptions  at  $2.50  a  year,  and  the  expense  for 
the  half-tones  used  in  the  advertising  pages  was  so  heavy  that 
every  increase  in  advertising  meant  an  increase  in  the  net  loss. 
The  republication  of  the  numbers  for  sale  in  bound  volumes 
did  not  meet  with  a  large  demand.  Special  patronage  in  some 
form  was  needed. 

A  fight  for  special  support  from  the  exposition  directorate 
was  lost  by  Mr.  Halligan.  Unfortunately  for  him,  between 
1890,  when  his  promotion  number,  copyrighted  as  Halligan' s 
Illustrated  World's  Fair,  made  its  appearance,  and  the  opening 
of  the  Fair  in  1893,  the  ofificial  name  adopted  for  it  was 
"World's  Columbian  Exposition"  instead  of  "World's  Fair,"  the 
name  originally  contemplated.  Hence,  although  the  exposition 
was  generally  spoken  of  as  the  "World's  Fair,"  the  name  of  his 
magazine  would  not  have  been  correct  for  an  official  organ. 

In  the  meantime,  a  monthly  designated  the  World's  Colum- 
bian Exposition  Illustrated  was  started,  in  February,  1891,  by 
Mr.  James  B.  Campbell,  a  Chicago  man  in  the  printing  business. 
A  collection  of  old  copies  of  the  Historical  Society  library  shows 
that  this,  too,  was  an  excellent  illustrated  journal,  although  not 
so  large  nor  so  artistic  as  Halligan's.  But  Mr.  Campbell 
succeeded  in  securing  official  support.  His  paper  became  the 
organ  of  the  exposition  directors,  publishing  official  documents. 
It  was  consequently  profitable  to  the  publisher.  The  magazine 
also  was  declared  to  be  the  prize  history  of  the  exposition  and 
was  awarded  a  first  premium. 

Besides  stating  that  he  proposed  to  make  the  World's  Colum- 
bian Exposition  Illustrated  a  "complete  encyclopedia  of  the  great 
enterprise,"  the  editor  and  publisher  said :  "In  addition  we  will 
devote  a  proper  amount  of  space  to  the  art  and  literature  of 


790  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

the  day."  A  standing  sub-line  to  the  title  made  the  same 
promise.  The  journal's  pages,  however,  contained  nothing  of 
aesthetic  interest  except  the  pictorial  display.  The  World's 
Columbian  Exposition  Illustrated  ran  as  such  until  February, 
1894. 

Out  of  it  grew  an  illustrated  monthly  magazine  which  has 
endured  until  the  present  day.  This  is  called  Campbell's  Illus- 
trated Journal.  In  the  number  before  its  change  of  name  an 
announcement  said  that  in  the  future  the  magazine  would  devote 
much  space  to  art.  In  it,  however,  chief  attention  has  been  paid 
to  the  various  expositions  which  have  followed  that  of  1893  in 
America  and  abroad.  In  1900  Mr.  Campbell  received  a  gold 
medal  at  the  Paris  exposition.  Today  his  journal  is  advertised 
as  a  high-class  illustrated  magazine  for  home  reading.  But  it 
has  never  been  given  a  strong  literary  character,  although  it 
has  been  so  conducted  as  to  be  a  successful  business  enterprise. 

The  Graphic,  which  rose  on  the  World's  Fair  wave,  was 
broader  in  scope,  and  higher  in  artistic  and  literary  quality,  than 
either  of  the  illustrated  papers  nominated  as  exposition  journals. 
It  was  published  by  Mr.  G.  P.  Engelhard,  who  is  today  a  suc- 
cessful publisher  of  medical  books.  During  two  of  the  years  of 
its  existence  it  was  edited  by  Mr.  J.  A.  Spencer  Dickerson,  now 
publisher  of  the  Baptist  paper,  the  Standard. 

Although  the  Graphic  was  a  national  news  and  general  liter- 
ary weekly,  it  grew  out  of  a  local  suburban  newspaper  owned  by 
Mr.  Engelhard.  This  paper  was  published  in  Hyde  Park,  the 
suburb  in  which  the  grounds  for  the  then  projected  fair  were 
located.  When  Hyde  Park  was  annexed  to  Chicago  in  1890, 
Mr.  Engelhard  converted  his  paper  for  local  items  into  a  national 
illustrated  weekly  of  most  general  character.  At  one  long  jump 
this  change  was  made,  in  the  hope  that,  from  a  start  which  illus- 
trating the  World's  Fair  was  expected  to  give  the  Graphic,  a 
permanent  foothold  for  a  nation-wide  circulation  would  be  se- 
cured. When,  in  1892,  the  Graphic  absorbed  America,  which 
on  its  part  had  absorbed  the  Current,  the  new  journal  possessed 
whatever   remnants   of   strength   there   were   left   from   all   the 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  791 

last  preceding  ephemeral  periodicals  of  merit  published  in 
Chicago. 

While  the  Graphic  was  a  general  newspaper,  containing 
editorial  reviews  of  independent  Republican  leaning,  literary  ma- 
terial of  interest  because  of  its  form  made  up  a  considerable 
share  of  its  contents.  There  was  serial  and  briefer  fiction,  also 
some  poetry,  in  every  week's  issue.  Mary  Hartwell  Cather- 
wood,  whose  romances  have  received  general  recognition,  con- 
tributed a  continued  story  of  Canadian  life  entitled  "The  Children 
of  Ha  Ha  Bay."  The  first  ambitious  work  of  Vance  Thompson 
whose  character  sketches  have  made  his  name  well .  known  to 
magazine  readers,  was  done  for  the  Graphic.  Florence  Wilkin- 
son, who  writes  verses  for  the  leading  magazines,  had  her  first 
experience  in  writing  for  a  periodical  while  serving  as  one  of  its 
editors.  Thus,  like  other  short-lived  literary  journals  in  Chi- 
cago, the  Graphic  was  a  training-ground  for  some  of  those  enter- 
ing the  literary  lists. 

This  bringing-out  of  local  talent  was  even  more  marked  in 
reference  to  illustrators.  The  illustrations  of  the  Graphic  were 
not  confined,  like  those  of  the  avowedly  World's  Fair  journals, 
to  reproductions  of  photographs.  Every  piece  of  fiction  was  en- 
livened with  original  illustrations.  Decorative  borders  illumi- 
nated the  pages.  T.  Dart  Walker  and  Henry  Reuterdahl,  illus- 
trators now  in  New  York,  did  some  of  their  initial  magazine 
work  for  the  Graphic.  Will  Bradley,  an  artist  also  now  of  New 
York,  did  borders  and  headpieces  for  it.  Others  who  later  went 
from  Chicago  to  "Gotham"  were  discovered  by  this  Chicago 
illustrated  periodical. 

For  the  reproductions  of  photographs  which  were  a  stable 
feature  of  the  Graphic,  at  first  zinc  etchings,  showing  only  lines, 
were  used.  But  in  1893  the  new  half-tones,  capable  of  making 
shadings  show  in  printer's  ink  by  means  of  etching  the  dotted 
surfaces  of  copper  plates  were  adopted.  They  were  especially 
good  for  picturing  the  white  buildings  and  dark  crowds  of  the 
fair.  But  the  process  was  then  expensive.  Mr.  Engelhard 
had  to  pay  40  cents  a  square  inch  for  half-tones — a  high  price 
compared  with  the  12^  cents  charged  today. 


792  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  yearly  subscription  price  was  put  at  $4.  Nevertheless, 
the  magazine  attained  a  bona  Me  circulation  of  13,000;  the 
advertisers'  annuals  quoted  it  at  40,000;  and  advertising  was 
received  in  such  amounts  that  for  one  twelve-month  period  the 
Graphic's  books  showed  a  profit  of  $10,000,  although  that  was 
not  enough  to  offset  the  losses  of  earlier  years. 

Then  came  the  panic  of  1893,  which  during  the  height 
of  the  Fair  business  men  had  felt  to  be  impending.  The 
circulation  of  the  Graphic  dropped  50  per  cent.,  throwing  what 
had  been  a  favorable  balance  to  the  other  side.  Its  publication 
was  soon  after  suspended.  Interviewed  for  this  historical  sketch, 
Mr.  Engelhard  said : 

The  Graphic  would  have  lived  through  this  reverse  if  it  had  been  started 
in  New  York,  for  two  reasons :  First,  because  New  York  is  the  home  of 
great  successes  in  higher-class  journalism.  With  a  showing  like  that  which 
the  Graphic  had  made  here,  if  made  there,  scores  of  men  of  wealth  would 
have  been  ready  to  step  in  and  keep  it  g^ing  as  a  business  investment.  Sec- 
ond, because  of  the  aggregation  of  art  talent  and  literary  talent  in  New 
York.  All  we  had  here  was  what  we  discovered  and  created.  The  thing 
that  makes  the  New  York  magazines  today  is  not  that  the  people  of  the 
country  care  particularly  to  patronize  New  York,  but  that  the  talent  is 
there.  New  York  is  distinctly  the  utilitarian  art  center,  just  as  Battle  Creek 
is  the  national  center  for  sanitaria  and  health  foods,  and  Detriot  for  medical 
supplies.  When  certain  interests  once  secure  lodgment  in  a  locality,  they 
find  a  natural  development  along  easiest  lines  in  that  place.  Men  of  talent 
for  illustrating,  discovered  by  the  Art  Institute,  daily  newspapers,  and 
short-lived  magazines  of  Chicago,  naturally  migrate  to  New  York.  It  was 
so  with  those  who  did  work  for  the  Graphic. 

The  names  of  two  other  illustrated  periodicals,  recorded  as 
having  originated  in  1892,  the  year  in  which  it  was  first  intended 
the  World's  Fair  should  be  opened,  appear  in  the  newspaper 
annual  lists  of  Chicago.  One  was  the  Illustrated  Sun,  a  weekly 
appearing  on  Saturdays  for  a  year.  The  other  was  the  Ameri- 
can Illustrated,  a  monthly  of  magazine  form,  devoted  to  litera- 
ture and  education.  Its  name  appeared  in  the  annuals  as  late  as 
1901,  when  it  announced  a  sworn  circulation  of  100,000. 

Puck,  one  of  the  well-established  New  York  humorous  week- 
lies, was  published  at  the  Columbian  Exposition  grounds  in  Chi- 
cago from  May  i  to  October  i,  1893.    It  bore  the  name  World's 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  793 

Fair  Puck,  and  also  a  Chicago  post-office  entry  for  thirty-six 
numbers,  but  its  nature  was  not  changed.  There  was  merely  a 
summer's  variation  in  the  subject-matter.  The  scenes  and  char- 
acters for  the  illustrated  jokes  and  sketches  were  taken  from  the 
Fair.  A  frequent  trick  of  the  caricaturists  and  cartoonists  for 
the  World's  Fair  Puck  was  to  make  the  exposition  statutory 
appear  animated.  Incidentally,  through  receiving  visitors  at  a 
temporary  Puck  Building  at  the  Fair,  the  publishers  pushed  their 
circulation. 

A  weekly  printed  for  the  most  part  from  plates  prepared  by 
a  syndicate  of  New  York  men  interested  in  Life,  was  issued  in 
Chicago  beginning  in  1890.  Figaro  was  its  name.  A  sketch 
of  "Figaro  en  Masque" — a  satanic  figure  in  pen  and  ink,  a  pho- 
tograph of  some  Chicago  society  leader,  and  a  border  in  brilliant 
red  ink  combine  to  awaken  interest  in  the  cover  of  each  of  the 
numbers  to  be  found  in  a  file  at  the  Newberry  Library.  In  the 
contents  the  plate  matter  from  Life  was  supplemented  with 
original  material  concerning  the  drama,  society,  and  local  affairs 
in  Chicago,  as  satirically  seen  through  a  monocle  like  Life's. 
After  the  first  year  the  general  jokes  from  New  York  were 
dropped  out.  By  1893  the  many  functions  for  visiting  princes 
afforded  more  society  news  than  there  had  been  in  Chicago 
before,  and  although  a  few  tales  were  published  in  the  paper, 
it  became  distinctly  a  society  weekly.  After  several  changes  in 
management,  with  the  issue  of  December  21,  1893,  Figaro  van- 
ished from  the  periodical  stage  in  Chicago. 

Titles  with  Columbian  Exposition  connotation  were  given, 
to  two  ephemeral  weeklies  of  the  literary  class.  One  called 
Columbia,  a  Saturday  paper  listed  in  the  newspaper  directories 
as  "literary,"  lasted  for  a  year  or  so  in  1890  and  1891.  The 
Columbian,  catalogued  as  a  periodical  devoted  to  fiction,  lived 
as  brief  a  time  in  1892  and  1893. 

A  creditable  quarterly  designated  the  Queen  Isabella  Journal, 
and  intended  to  be  but  ephemeral,  was  published  in  1893  by  the 
Queen  Isabella  Association  to  promote  the  interests  of  women  at 
the  World's  Fair. 

The  creation  of  several  art  magazines  for  general  readers 


794  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

was  one  of  the  direct  results  of  the  exaltation  of  the  fine  arts  in 
Chicago  and  the  Middle  West  by  the  World's  Columbian  Expo- 
sition. They  grew  out  of  the  general  increase  in  attention  to 
the  so-called  fine  arts — the  expressions  of  beauty  in  the  graphic 
and  plastic  media — which  was  given  a  much  greater  impetus 
by  the  Exposition  than  was  activity  in  other  forms  of  express- 
ing the  aesthetic  interest.  This  attention  was  not  ended  with  the 
passing  of  the  rich  collection  of  paintings,  drawings,  and  sculp- 
ture in  the  Art  Building  of  staff  at  the  Fair  grounds.  There  was 
a  permanent  result  more  influential  locally,  and  from  which  art 
magazines  emanated  more  directly.  The  impressive  and  beauti- 
ful structure  of  the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago,  standing  on  the 
Lake  Front  border  of  the  city's  business  maelstrom,  was  erected 
in  1892.  The  World's  Fair  commissioners  and  the  Art  Institute 
trustees  built  it  and  gave  it  to  the  municipality.  It  was  tempo- 
rarily used  for  Columbian  Exposition  congresses.  But  the  monu- 
mental structure  of  blue-gray  stone,  its  architecture  of  the  Italian 
Renaissance  style,  with  details  in  classic  Ionic  and  Corinthian, 
was  erected  on  such  a  scale  as  would  fit  it  to  stand  as  a  permanent 
shrine,  where  worshipers  of  the  fine  arts  might  gather  in  its 
museums  and  grow  in  appreciation  of  beauty,  and  where  those 
with  creative  ability  might  assemble  in  its  studios  and  learn 
technique.  The  art  magazines  which  accompanied  the  general 
interest  in  fine  arts  awakened  by  the  exposition,  and  the  perma- 
nent establishment  of  this  institution  of  art,  did  not  depend  pri- 
marily on  literary  form  for  their  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  interest. 
But  since  the  art  of  letters  is  furthered  by  the  parallel  increase 
of  interest  in  painting  and  sculpture,  the  growth  in  this  phase 
of  the  aesthetic  interest,  and  the  magazines  which  went  with  it, 
are  to  be  considered  in  giving  an  account  of  the  literary  interests 
of  Chicago. 

Brush  and  Pencil  is  the  name  which  two  artistic  magazines 
started  at  the  Art  Institute  have  borne,  one  of  them,  a  general 
art  magazine  which  has  broken  the  local  bounds,  being  still  pub- 
lished regularly.  In  October,  1892,  the  first  magazine  of  that 
name  was  attempted  at  the  Institute.  It  lived  but  a  short  time, 
and  was  soon  absorbed  by  Arts  for  Amerka. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  795 

This  more  lasting  magazine — Arts  for  America — was  also 
established  in  1892,  but  with  offices  outside  of  the  Art  Institute. 
It  was  broader  in  its  scope,  and  more  directly  the  result  of  the 
general  interest  in  fine  arts  created  by  the  Exposition  exhibits. 
One  of  its  early  objects  was  announced  to  be  the  reproduction 
of  the  pictures  at  the  World's  Fair.  Devoted  exclusively  to  in- 
formation about  the  fine  arts,  it  was  an  attractive  monthly,  digni- 
fied in  tone,  and,  from  its  illustrations,  beautiful  in  appearance. 
It  was  the  organ  of  the  Central  Art  Association,  and  was  con- 
tinued for  nine  years.  Later  numbers  announced  that  one  of  its 
objects  was  the  promotion  of  national  art  education.  In  1899, 
from  an  office  of  publication  in  the  Auditorium  tower,  the  maga- 
zine went  out  to  15,000  readers,  largely  in  the  north  central 
states.    Mrs.  T.  Vernette  Morse  was  its  editor. 

The  Brush  and  Pencil,  which  has  been  continued  monthly  to 
the  present  time,  was  begun  in  1897.  It  was  started  as  a  maga- 
zine '^devoted  to  the  interests  of  the  students  of  the  Art  Institute." 
In  the  initial  number  the  editor  of  Arts  for  America  was  thanked 
for  the  permission  to  revive  the  name  Brush  and  Pencil.  Charles 
Francis  Browne,  the  painter,  a  member  of  the  Art  Institute  corps 
of  teachers,  was  the  first  editor  oi  the  journal.  In  tone  it  was 
at  the  beginning  very  much  like  any  school  or  college  paper. 

In  1900  Brush  and  Pencil  became  a  general  art  magazine, 
the  local  elements  being  eliminated.  During  that  year  it  was  pur- 
chased by  Mr.  Frederick  W.  Morton,  a  former  Unitarian  min- 
ister, who  for  five  months  in  1899  had  attempted,  at  Chicago,  the 
publication  of  Friday,  "a  weekly  journal  of  views,  reviews,  and 
piquant  comment."  Mr.  Morton  became  sole  editor  and  pub- 
lisher of  Brush  and  Pencil.  For  several  years  the  office  of  pub- 
lication was  in  the  McClurg  Building. 

The  character  of  the  magazine,  as  a  portrayer  oi  contempo- 
rary work  in  the  fine  arts,  has  been  excellent.  The  reproductions 
of  the  best  of  the  paintings,  mural  decoration,  and  sculpture  of 
America,  Europe,  and  Japan,  printed  in  its  pages,  have  been 
well  done.  Mr.  Morton  holds  that  at  no  city  can  engraving  and 
printing  of  high  quality  be  secured  more  economically  than  in 
Chicago.  The  magazine's  articles  on  art  subjects  have  also 
been  uniformly  good. 


796  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Brush  and  Pencil  has  had  a  circulation  of  10,000,  the  sub- 
scribers being  scattered  through  all  the  states .  But  Mr.  Morton 
complains  that  the  people  of  Chicago  are  not  yet  interested  in 
art  in  general,  that  their  art  interest  is  confined  to  supporting 
the  Art  Institute.  The  magazine  has  not  enjoyed  a  very  pros- 
perous business  career.  From  July  to  December,  1904,  its  publi- 
cation was  temporarily  discontinued,  but  thereafter  resumed. 
To  secure  advertising,  on  May  i,  1905,  the  main  office  of  the 
periodical  was  removed  to  New  York,  although  the  Chicago 
post-office  entry  has  been  retained  and  the  mechanical  work  con- 
tinued here.     Mr.  Morton  says : 

New  York  is  the  magazine  center  of  the  country.  Any  Chicago 
magazine  that  has  made  good  its  foothold  has  gone  to  New  York.  In  New 
York  in  five  days  I  secured  $2,400  worth  of  cash  advertising.  In  Chicago 
I  could  not  get  that  much  for  Brush  and  Pencil  in  five  weeks. 

Great  Pictures,  a  monthly  filled  with  reproductions  of  paint- 
ings by  world-masters,  was  brought  out  regularly  during  the 
year  1899.  Its  contents  were  confined  to  copies  of  the  nude. 
Its  file  shows  that  it  was  plainly  erotic,  and  that  the  periodical 
was  designed  for  a  perverted  use  of  the  art  interests.  It  was 
published  by  "The  White  City  Art  Company,"  and  was  a  medium 
for  advertising  the  sale  of  single  copies  of  the  pictures  repro- 
duced in  its  pages. 

Nature  and  Art,  a.  children's  monthly  of  aesthetic  interest 
derived  from  illustrations  well  executed  in  printed  colors,  was 
begun  in  1897  as  Birds  in  Natural  Colors,  and  continued  until 
1901. 

Child  Garden  of  Story,  Song  and  Play,  a  monthly  magazine 
for  children  of  the  age  for  primers,  was  established  in  1892  and 
is  still  published.  It  is  a  kindergarten  magazine  in  which  the 
attractiveness  of  stories,  rhymes,  and  pictures  is  utilized  to  edu- 
cate little  ones  without  the  appearance  of  didactic  effort,  accord- 
ing to  the  principles  of  the  "new  education."  It  is  published  at 
the  Pestalozzi-Froebel  Press  in  Chicago,  and  has  a  circulation 
of  10,000. 

A  unique  order  of  literary  periodicals,  toned  to  the  temper 
of  the  artist,  whatever  his  working  medium,  flourished  in  Chi- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  797 

cago  during  the  years  immediately  following  the  World's  Fair. 
The  presence  of  a  growing  group  of  professional  artists  and  liter- 
ary workers — an  artist  class — and  an  increase  in  the  number  of 
dilettantes  account,  in  part,  for  the  interest  in  this  type  of  lit- 
erary medium  at  Chicago.  Enthusiasm  for  individual  expres- 
sion, and  contempt  for  the  inartistic,  gave  a  tang  toi  these  minia- 
ture magazines.  The  Chap-Book,  whose  history  has  significance 
in  a  certain  line  of  literary  and  periodical  publishing  develop- 
ment for  the  entire  country,  east  as  well  as  west,  was  the  first 
and  most  notable  of  this  class  of  literary  media.  Others  at  Chi- 
cago in  the  nineties  were  Four  O'Clock,  the  Blue  Sky,  and  the 
Scroll. 

Before  being  transplanted  to  Chicago,  in  August,  1894,  the 
Chap-Book  had  been  issued  for  three  months  at  Cambridge, 
Mass.  Mr.  Herbert  S.  Stone,  a  Harvard  college  man  from  Chi- 
cago, the  son  of  Mr.  Melville  E.  Stone,  the  journalist,  was  the 
chief  originator  and  principal  editor  and  publisher  of  the  Chap- 
Book  until  its  hundredth  and  last  number  appeared  July  15, 
1898.  As  an  undergraduate  he  had  been  editor  of  the  Harvard 
Crimson,  had  contributed  sketches  to  the  Lampoon,  and  had  pre- 
pared a  serious  work  of  First  Editions  of  American  Authors,  de- 
signed for  collectors.  In  the  autumn  of  his  senior  year,  1893- 
94,  at  Cambridge,  Mr.  Stone  had,  with  H.  I.  Kimball,  establish- 
ed the  firm  of  Stone  &  Kimball,  for  carrying  on  a  small  book- 
publishing  business,  which  was  later  continued  in  New  York 
by  Mr.  Kimball. 

The  periodical  was  put  out  to  be  an  adjunct  tO'  this  business. 
The  ambitious  undergraduate  book-publishers  needed  a  circular 
with  which  to  advertise  the  books  of  fiction  and  verse  bearing 
their  imprint,  and  economy  was  to  be  exercised  in  having  it  cir- 
culated as  second-class  mail  matter.  Choosing  a  name  which 
originated  in  the  literary  developments  of  England  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  when  small  tracts  or  booklets  containing  ballads 
and  stories  of  heroes,  hobgoblins,  and  witches  were  issued  inter- 
mittently, and  were  sold  cheap,  by  chapmen  or  peddlers,  they 
called  their  circular  the  Chap-Book — a  name  which  proved  ad- 
mirably pat  for  the  Cambridge-ChicagO'  publication.     This  was 


798  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

the  first  chap-book  to  appear  at  stated  intervals.  Coming  out 
semi-monthly,  it  was  sold  at  five  cents  a  copy  and  one  dollar  a 
year.  It  was  very  small  and  of  the  bibelot  shape,  something  new 
at  the  time,  and  a  means  of  emphasizing  its  unique  character. 

But  for  this  "miscellany  and  review  of  belles-lettres"  to  ful- 
fil the  post-office  regulations,  reading-matter  containing  general 
information  was  required,  and  the  title-page,  which,  like  every 
other  of  its  pages,  was  odd  from  being  printed  in  red  as  well  as 
black  ink,  contained  these  words: 

The  Chap-Book,  Being  a  miscellany  of  curious  and  interesting  songs, 
ballads,  tales,  histories,  etc. ;  adorned  with  a  variety  of  pictures  and  very 
delightful  to  read,  newly  composed  by  MANY  CELEBRATED  WRITERS ; 
to  which  is  annexed  a  large  collection  of  notices  of  books. 

In  the  character  creation,  during  the  first  two  months  of  the 
periodical,  Mr.  Stone  was  assisted  by  Bliss  Carman,  the  poet. 
Together  they  wrote  some  original  notes  and  essays,  and  edited 
the  contributions.  Sharp  remarks  about  new  books,  reviews 
containing  views  framed  solely  from  the  feelings  of  the  one  who 
happened  to  write  each  critique,  gave  the  Chap-Book  its  keynote. 
All  of  the  notes  were  in  the  first  person  and  signed.  The  essays, 
stories,  and  poems  published,  were  marked  by  the  most  distinct 
individuality  and  originality.  In  making  their  bow,  the  chap- 
men of  1894  had  added  a  word  that  contributions  from  writers 
"unknown"  as  well  as  from  those  "wellknown"  would  be 
printed.  Both  men  who  had  written  before  and  men  who  had 
never  written  for  publication,  but  thought  that  they  could  do  so, 
at  once  saw  in  the  Chap-Book  a  medium  for  their  freest  expres- 
sion. They  soared  in  freedom  from  the  commercial  chains  of 
the  established  publishers  who  judge  literary  output  by  the  stand- 
ard of  the  conventional  demands  made  by  the  book-  and  maga- 
zine-buying public.  The  independence  of  the  Chap-Book  was 
emphasized  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Stone  and  Mr.  Kimball  con- 
tinued their  publishing  despite  a  threat  from  the  Harvard 
faculty  that  if  it  was  not  discontinued  they  could  not  be 
graduated. 

This  new  periodical,  so  novel  in  character,  leaped  into  in- 
stant popularity  with  its  first  numbers.     Such  a  reception  took 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  799 

the  young  publishers  by  surprise.  It  seemed  to  them  an  acci- 
dent. They,  hoAvever,  grasped  the  situation  and  pushed  their 
effort  with  enthusiasm.  Before  the  three  months  of  its  publica- 
tion at  Cambridge  had  ended,  the  Chap-Book  had  found  an  audi- 
ence and  was  to  be  seen  regularly  on  the  news-stands  not  only 
of  Boston  and  the  East,  but  throughout  the  country. 

The  local  situation  was  not  very  encouraging  for  the  Chap- 
Book,  when  in  the  summer  of  1894  its  publishing  headquarters 
were  removed  to  Chicago.  It  became  a  Chicago  publication  for 
the  greater  part  of  its  existence  chiefly  through  the  accident  that 
Mr.  Stone's  home  was  here,  and  that  for  personal  and  social 
reasons  he  decided,  upon  graduation  from  college,  to  carry  on  a 
professional  and  business  career  as  a  publisher  in  this  city.  Mr. 
Harrison  Garfield  Rhodes,  a  Cleveland  man,  came  with  him  to 
be  associate  editor  of  the  Chap-Book.  Mr.  Stone  found  the  resi- 
dents of  Chicago  suffering  under  a  reaction  which  came  after  the 
World's  Fair.  Mr.  Stone  says  that  an  avalanche  of  criticism  from 
discerning  visitors  here  the  year  before  to  see  the  "White  City" 
had  temporarily  overwhelmed  the  thinking  people  of  the  smoke- 
covered,  overgrown  business  town,  which  stood  out  unfavorably 
by  contrast  with  the  beautiful  Fair.  But  he  was  nevertheless 
firm  in  the  belief  that  an  essentially  cosmopolitan  magazine  could 
be  published  successfully  in  Chicago  and  the  West. 

Attention  to  new  and  curious  developments  in  foreign  artistic 
groups,  particularly  among  the  men  of  letters  in  England,  which 
had  been  one  of  the  unique  features  of  the  Chap-Book  in  its 
earliest  issues,  was  continued  and  increased.  Mr.  Stone  was  in 
close  touch  with  Aubrey  Beardsley  and  the  "Yellow  Book" 
coterie  of  London,  and  from  time  to  time  made  trips  to  London 
and  Paris  in  quest  of  manuscripts.  In  a  partial  summary  of 
authors  who  sent  contributions  from  abroad,  the  following  were 
listed : 

From  England:  William  Sharp, Edmund  Gosse, Kenneth  Grahame, I.  Zangwill, 
John  Davidson,  "Q",  William  Ernest  Henley,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  H.  B. 
Marriott  Watson,  William  Canton,  Norman  Gale,  Max  Beerbohm,  F.  Frank- 
fort Moore,  Arthur  Morrison,  H.  G.  Well?,  S.  Levett  Yeats,  Katherine  Tynan 
Hinkson,  W.  B.  Yeats,  Thomas  Hardy,  E.  F.  Benson,  William  Watson,  Henry 
Newbolt,  and  Andrew  Lang.     From  France:     Paul  Verlaine,  among  others. 


8cx>  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Among  American  contributors  were : 

Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  Alice  Brown,  Gertrude  Hall,  Richard  Hovey, 
Louise  Chandler  Moulton,  Gilbert  Parker,  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts,  Clinton 
Scollard,  Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  Maria 
Louise  Pool,  Richard  Henry  Stoddard,  Richard  Burton,  Madison  Cawein, 
Eugene  Field,  Julian  Hawthorne,  H.  H.  Boyesen,  Clyde  Fitch,  Wallace  Rice, 
Hamlin  Garland,  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie,  Maurice  Thompson,  John  Vance 
Cheney,  Lillian  Bell,  John  Burroughs,  Stephen  Crane,  John  Fox,  Jr.,  Henry 
James,  Clinton  Ross,  Charles  F.  Lummis,  Edmund  Clarence  Stedman,  George 
W.  Cable,  Alice  Morse  Earle,  Brander  Matthews,  Octave  Thanet,  Tudor 
Jenks,  Joseph  Pennell,  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar,  J.  J. 
Piatt,  Ruth  McEnery  Stuart,  George  Edward  Woodberry,  R.  W.  Chambers, 
L.  E.  Gates,  John  Jay  Chapman,  Norman  Hapgood,  Gerald  Stanley  Lee, 
John  Kendrick  Bangs,  and  Joel  Chandler  Harris. 

That  their  writings  would  find  place  alongside  of  those  of  such 
a  company  from  America  and  England  was  a  spur  tO'  ambitious 
young  writers  in  Chicago  and  the  West,  who  found  in  the 
Chap-Book  a  medium  which  was  suited  to  the  virility  and  inde- 
pendence of  their  westernism,  but  at  the  same  time  was  so  cosmo- 
politan an  exponent  of  literary  expression  from  various  parts  of 
the  world  as  to  make  for  the  broadening  of  their  striving  toward 
artistic  expression.  Among  the  Americans  listed  above  not  a 
few  did  some  of  their  first  work  for  the  Chap-Book.  In  Chicago 
Mr.  Stone  solicited  manuscripts  not  only  from  amateur  literary 
workers,  such  as  Edith  Wyatt  then  was,  but  also  asked  news- 
paper men  to  write  for  the  Chap-Book  with  special  attention  to 
form  of  expression.  Among  others  of  whom  he  asked  manu- 
scripts were  George  Ade  and  Finley  Peter  Dunne.  Wallace  Rice 
wrote  many  clever  critiques  for  the  periodical. 

The  artists  and  literary  workers  of  Chicago,  who  had  grown 
to  be  quite  a  group,  well  defined  through  World's  Fair  influ- 
ences, were  soon  rallied  around  the  Chap-Book.  A  series  of 
"Chap-Book  teas"  drew  them  to  Mr.  Stone's  publishing-ofifice, 
to  look  at  originals  of  drawings  and  manuscripts,  to-  talk  shop, 
and  in  general  to  promote  sociability  in  the  professional  literary 
and  art  crowd.  Incidentally  the  "Chap-Book  teas,"  which  were 
followed  by  meetings  of  the  "Attic  Club,"  set  the  copy  for  the 
meetings   of   the    "Little   Room,"    an    organization    of   creative 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  8oi 

writers,  artists,  and  musicians  who  at  present  gather  fortnightly 
at  a  studio  in  the  Fine  Arts  Building,  and  by  the  very  coming  to^ 
gether  of  the  artist  class  for  a  social  hour  or  two  foster  profes- 
sional literary  and  artistic  endeavor. 

''Chap-Book  posters"  were  one  of  the  unique  artistic  products 
put  out  by  the  publisher  of  this  unique  magazine.  These  posters 
were  sent  to  the  news-stands,  and  influenced  buyers  of  periodicals 
so  that  sales  ran  up  as  high  as  50,000,  and  averaged  20,000. 
The  posters  were  so  artistic  and  so  fantastic  that  they  became 
very  popular  on  their  own  account.  Harper's  posters,  by  Pen- 
field,  had  previously  attracted  attention.  But  there  was  a  rage 
for  Chap-Book  posters,  and  prospective  readers  often  competed 
in  keen  bidding  for  them  without  buying  the  periodical  they 
were  intended  to  advertise.  Through  making  many  of  these 
posters.  Will  Bradley  helped  himself  toward  achieving  a  national 
reputation. 

But  in  a  short  time  the  Chap-Book  no  longer  stood  out  as  a 
unique  literary  periodical.  The  force  of  imitation  was  soon 
manifest.  Mr.  Stone  says  that  at  one  time  there  were  twenty-six 
imitators  of  it  at  the  news-stalls.  A  disinterested  investigator, 
Frederick  Winthrop  Faxon,  of  the  Bulletin  of  Bibliography, 
Boston,  compiled  "A  Bibliography  of  Modern  Chap-Books  and 
Their  Imitators,"  which  was  first  published  in  the  journal  with 
which  he  is  connected,  and  republished  in  1903  as  a  pamphlet 
under  the  title  Ephemeral  Bibelots.  He  lists  200  such  periodi- 
cals, and  in  his  introduction  says,  in  part : 

The  small  artistically  printed  periodicals  variously  called  Chap-Books, 
Ephemerals,  Bibelots,  Brownie  Magazines,  Fadazines,  Magazettes,  Freak  Maga- 
zines, owe  their  origin  probably  to  the  success  of  The  Chap-Book,  which 
was  at  once  in  such  great  demand  that  the  early  numbers  were  soon  out  of 
print  and  were  in  demand  by  collectors  at  from  twenty  to  fifty  times  their 
original  price.  All  sorts  of  "little  magazines"  were  soon  on  the  news-stands, 
competing  for  a  part  of  The  Chap-Book's  favor.  They  were,  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, easily  distinguishable  by  their  appearance  as  well  as  by  their  names, 
which  were  apparently  carefully  chosen  to  indicate  the  ephemeral  character 
of  the  publication. 

The  motive  of  publication  of  the  genuine  chap-books  is  hard  to  discover. 
They  sprang  up  in  the  most  out-of-the-way  spots  and  died  young  in  most 


8o2  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

cases.  Of  the  first  generation  we  still  have  with  us  only  the  Little  Journeys 
(December,  1894),  now  in  its  second  form;  Bibelot  (January,  1895);  Philis- 
tine (June,  1895)  ;  and  the  Philosopher  (January,  1897),  now  in  its  third 
size. 

Many  of  these  bibelots  seem  to  have  resulted  from  the  desire  of  ambi- 
tious, unknown  writers  to  reach  a  supposedly  large  waiting  public,  which 
could  not  be  reached  through  the  established  magazines,  either  because  the 
author  could  not  get  his  manuscript  accepted,  or  because  the  readers  he  wished 
to  reach  were  not  among  the  subscribers  to  the  older  monthlies  and  quarter- 
lies. This  is  but  our  humble  guess  as  to  cause  of  birth ;  but  lack  of  support, 
or  unwillingness  on  the  part  of  the  editor  to  be  the  only  support,  caused  the 
untimely  (?)  death  of  the  majority.  In  1898  the  race  had  almost  all 
died  off. 

The  Chap-Book,  in  a  valedictory  review  of  its  career  and 
influence,  said : 

Its  habits  of  free  speech  produced  a  curious  movement  among  the  young 
writers  of  the  country.  There  was  scarcely  a  village  or  town  which  did  not 
have  its  little  individualistic  pamphlet  f'-ankly  imitating  the  form  and  tone 
of  the  Chap-Book. 

Many  moves  toward  getting  the  Chap-Book  out  of  the  class 
of  ephemerals  and  into  that  of  magazines  firmly  established  on 
a  sound  business  basis  were  made  by  Mr.  Stone  after  settling 
down  to  his  life-work  as  a  publisher  in  Chicago.  One  such, 
made  January  15,  1897,  was  the  abandonment  of  its  small  form, 
for  the  regulation  7^X4^  i^ch  magazine  size.  This  change 
robbed  the  magazine  of  an  appearance  which  had  previously 
attracted  attention  to  it  when  it  was  unique,  and  also  proclaimed 
the  fact  that  the  proprietor  was  laying  more  emphasis  on  the 
commercialization  than  on  the  editing  of  the  periodical.  This 
change  did  not  help  sales  and  circulation.  Furthermore,  by  this 
time  the  Chap-Book  had  said  so  many  scorching  things  about 
books  brought  out  by  every  leading  publishing  house  in  America 
that  the  publishers,  from  whom  such  a  journal,  containing  liter- 
ary critiques,  should  naturally  have  received  its  principal  adver- 
tising patronage,  tabooed  it.  As  a  bid  for  advertisements  from 
general  magazine  advertisers,  still  another  experimental  change 
in  form  was  made,  February  15,  1898.  The  pages  were  en- 
larged to  the   12X8^    inch  illustrated   weekly  size,   and  extra 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  803 

smooth  paper,  suitable  for  advertisements  containing  half-tones, 
was  used.  But  the  Chap-Book  did  not  secure  much  general 
advertising.  Mr.  Stone  says  one  reason  is  that  it  was  published 
too  far  from  the  seat  of  the  advertising  business — New  York. 
But  a  more  important  reason  is  that  no  effort  to  secure  a  list 
of  annual  subscribers  was  made.  "If  we  had  secured  such  a 
list,  the  Chap-Book  would  be  alive  today,"  says  Mr.  Stone. 
"News-stand  sales  fluctuate.  A  list  is  needed  in  order  to  get 
advertising  in  ofif-years." 

The  Chap-Book  died  July  15,  1898.  On  that  date  those  of 
its  readers  who  were  regular  subscribers  received  a  folio  of  fare- 
well.   This  finis  notice  said  in  part : 

It  was-  not  felt  necessary  to  continue  the  Chap-Book  longer  to  demon- 
strate that  a  good  literary  magazine  could  be  published  in  the  West  and 
meet  the  critical  approval  of  the  country.  The  Chap-Book  has  never  de- 
pended in  any  special  way  upon  the  West  for  support;  indeed,  it  is  probable 
that,  in  proportion  to  its  size,  Chicago  had  fewer  subscribers  than  any  other 
large  city.  But  the  editors  believe  that  the  critical  standards  of  their  paper 
have  been  kept  as  high  as  would  have  been  possible  either  East  or  West.  They 
believe  that  they  have  been  consistently  honest  in  trying  to  give  to  their 
public  what  seemed  to  them  the  best  writing  they  could  procure,  whether  it 
came  from  new  or  well-known  authors.  They  believe,  furthermore,  that  the 
Chap-Book  has  been  the  strongest  protest  we  have  had  in  America  against 
the  habit  of  promiscuous  overpraise  which  is  threatening  to  make  the  whole 
body  of  American  criticism  useless  and  stultifying. 

Instead  of  the  July  15  issue  of  the  Chap-Book,  the  subscribers  will 
receive  the  issue  of  the  Dial  for  the  same  date.  To  this  latter  journal,  upon 
an  offer  from  its  proprietors,  have  been  transferred  the  subscription  list, 
the  right  to  the  name,  and  the  good-will  of  the  Chap-Book.  It  has  been 
consistently  maintained  by  the  Chap-Book  that  the  Dial  is  in  many  ways 
the  best  purely  critical  journal  in  America,  and  it  is  hoped  that  subscribers 
will  be  pleased  that  their  subscriptions  are  to  be  filled  out  in  this  manner. 

William  Morton  Payne,  a  regular  writer  for  the  Dial,  says 
the  Chap-Book  was  a  fad  which  ran  its  course,  and  that  the  Dial 
then  absorbed  what  was  left  of  it.  He  also  gives  the  authorita- 
tive opinion  that  the  Chap-Book  was  superior  tO'  any  of  its  imi- 
tators. 

Having  profited  by  experience  with  the  Chap-Book,  Mr. 
Stone  has  been  successful  in  publishing  and  editing  the  House 


8o4  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Beautiful.  This  attractive  monthly  was  one  of  the  first  merito- 
rious periodicals  currently  published  at  Chicago,  and  not  a  trade 
paper,  to  become  established  on  a  business  footing.  One  reason 
given  for  the  suspension  of  the  Chap-Book  was  that  from  a 
business  point  of  view  the  time  and  energy  which  it  took  could 
be  spent  more  profitably  in  attention  to  the  other  interests  oi 
Herbert  S.  Stone  &  Co.,  this  firm  being  engaged  in  bringing  out 
novels  and  other  works,  and  doing  general  publishing.  In  this 
connection  Mr.  Stone's  firm  had  taken  up,  in  September,  1897, 
the  work  of  publishing  the  House  Beautiful,  which  however, 
as  from  the  date  of  its  beginning  in  December,  1896,  was  then 
edited  by  Eugene  Clapp,  a  civil  engineer.  When  Air.  Clapp 
went  to  Cuba  as  a  lieutenant  of  volunteers  in  the  summer  of 
1898,  Mr.  Stone  became  the  editor.  In  1900  he  sold  his  book- 
publishing  interests  to  Mr.  Melville  E.  Stone,  Jr.,  his  brother, 
and  has  since  conducted  the  Hoiue  Beautiful  as  an  individual 
enterprise. 

Avoiding  the  Chap-Book  pitfall,  the  first  effort  of  Mr.  Stone 
has  been  to  secure  a  large  list  of  annual  subscribers.  In  1900 
the  House  Beautiful  had  3,000  regular  subscribers,  and  the 
news-stand  sales  averaged  4,000.  In  1905  the  monthly  circula- 
tion claimed  was  40,000,  and  but  a  small  percentage  of  the  copies 
went  to  others  than  regular  subscribers.  To  offset  the  diffi- 
culty in  securing  income  from  advertising  which  arises  because 
75  per  cent,  of  all  general  advertising  is  placed  by  agencies  in 
New  York,  the  subscription  price  has  been  raised  from  $1  to  $2 
per  year.  In  1904  the  size  of  the  pages  was  enlarged  to  9X1^ 
inches  so  as  to  provide  more  advertising  space  next  to  single 
columns  of  reading-matter  in  the  back  part. 

The  art  of  interior  decoration  in  the  homes  of  those  who, 
while  having  annual  incomes  of  $8,000,  yet  are  so  located  that 
they  cannot  often  visit  the  metropolitan  stores,  the  art  of  land- 
scape gardening,  and  architecture  for  country  houses  are  the 
topics  of  aesthetic  interest  to  which  the  House  Beautiful  is  de- 
voted. It  contains  little  or  no  fiction,  and  Mr.  Stone's  society 
proclivities  show  results  in  its  character.  But  since  he  writes  or 
rewrites  much  of  its  contents,  the  periodical  is  marked  by  literary 
touches  reminiscent  of  the  ear-marks  of  the  Chap-Book. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  805 

In  mentioning  ephemeral  imitators  of  the  Chap-Book  ap- 
pearing in  the  nineties,  Mr.  Faxon,  in  the  pamphlet  heretofore 
quoted,  says : 

The  Debutante,  The  Little  Cyclist,  The  Mermaid,  and  The  Night-Cap 
were  advertised  to  appear  in  Chicago,  the  first  in  April,  1895,  the  others  in 
March  and  May,  1S96,  but  were  probably  never  issued. 

With  a  suggestion  in  its  name  of  the  bright  give-and-take 
of  afternoon  teas.  Four  O'Clock  was  conspicuous  among  the 
original  magazines  expressing  the  attitude  of  certain  literary 
workers,  pen-and-ink  artists,  and  dabblers  in  art  at  Chicago  in 
the  late  nineties.  Its  descriptive  subtitle  proclaimed  it  to  be  "a 
monthly  magazine  of  original  writings,"  and  its  motto  was 
"Sincerity,  beauty,  ease,  cleverness."  Most  of  its  contents  were 
from  Chicago  writers.  Not  all  were  so  original  and  clever,  nor 
so  marked  by  ease  and  beauty  of  style,  as  to  be  of  special  literary 
value,  though  some  had  a  degree  of  merit.  The  "sincerity"  was 
its  expression  of  that  vague  spiritual  quality  known  as  the  artist 
soul.  In  illustrations,  however,  the  periodical  was  original  and 
specially  attractive.  The  reproductions  of  drawings,  done  so  as 
to  give  them  the  effect  of  originals,  appeared  on  leaves  of  special 
texture,  pasted  into  the  magazine.  This  device  gave  the  periodi- 
cal distinctive  aesthetic  values.  Young  artists,  a  majority  of 
them  students  at  the  Art  Institute,  did  most  of  this  illustrating. 
Among  the  illustrators  was  Carl  Werntz,  who'  is  now  the  head  of 
the  Art  Academy,  an  independent  art  school  in  Chicago.  Four 
O'clock  was  started  some  time  after  the  Chap-Book  had  reached 
the  height  of  its  career  in  Chicago.  No.  i  was  dated  February, 
1897.  With  the  seventy-first  number,  December  1902,  Four 
O'clock  was  merged  in  Muse,  another  of  the  art-spirit  literary 
periodicals,  which  had  grown  out  of  still  another  called  Phil- 
harmonic. Literary  workers  who  recall  these  magazines  char- 
acterize them  as  dilettante  ephemerals. 

The  Blue  Sky  Magazine,  a  dainty  monthly  booklet  of  letters, 
came  regularly  from  a  Chicago  shop  from  August,  1899,  until 
April,  1902.  In  both  make-up  and  contents  it  was  beautiful  and 
quaint.  This  little  magazine  was  a  literary  exponent  of  the  new 
arts-and-crafts  movement.  It  was  printed  at  "the  house  of  the 
Blue  Sky  Press,"  4732  Kenwood  Avenue,  and,  like  the  books 


8o6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

which  the  "Skytes,"  as  the  pubhshers  called  themselves,  brought 
out  from  time  to  time,  it  was  hand-set  and  printed  by  hand,  ex- 
quisite in  workmanship.  Most  of  the  numbers  were  the  size  of 
a  book  easily  slipped  into  a  coat  pocket.  It  was  printed  on  deckle- 
edge  paper,  and  each  paragraph  was  indicated  with  a  reversed 
P.  Thomas  Wood  Stevens  and  Alden  Charles  Noble,  poetic 
souls  who  had  been  schooled  in  the  mechanical  part  of  their 
craft  at  Armour  Institute  of  Technology,  were  the  Blue  Sky 
Magazine  publishers,   editors,   and   chief  contributors. 

"Happy  is  the  man  who  ever  sees  the  blue  sky" — so  their 
adopted  motto  ran.  In  an  announcement  of  back  volumes  of 
the  magazine,  books  bound  in  antique  boards,  they  gave  this 
quotation  from  "The  Summer  Sky"  : 

So  let  us  mould  the  Spirit  of  our  book :  to  bring  sometimes  the  sound  of 
an  old  chivalric  song  over  star-strewn  waters  tuning  the  Elder  elemental 
note  to  the  sweetest  harmonies  of  the  N'^.w. 

Throughout,  the  contents  showed  evidence  of  editing  and  writ- 
ing in  this  spirit.  Verse,  short  stories,  mostly  on  archaic  themes, 
and  two  departments  designated  "Stray  Clouds"  and  "The 
Devil,  His  Stuff,"  being  made  up  of  clever  literary  gossip  by  the 
young  editors,  filled  the  pages.  In  the  verse  some  "Formal 
Measures"  by  Mr.  Stevens,  and  a  series  of  stately  child  rhymes 
by  Mr.  Noble,  received  the  favor  of  critics.  Dr.  Frank  W. 
Gunsaulus,  the  imaginative  pulpit  orator  who  is  president  of 
the  institute  which  the  Blue  Sky  Magazine  editors  had  attended, 
contributed  some  of  his  poetry.  Among  the  tales  was  one  by 
James  Lane  Allen,  entitled  "The  Extraordinary."  An  essay 
on  "The  Poetry  of  William  Morris."  by  Wallace  Rice,  and  a 
few  lines  in  meter,  entitled  "Brothers,"  by  Mrs.  Elia  W.  Peattie, 
were  written  for  the  April,  1902,  number,  which  proved  to  be 
the  last.  Each  of  the  five  volumes,  except  the  first,  was  beauti- 
fully illustrated  with  symbolic  pen-and-ink  drawings  and  hazy 
wash-work.  Walter  J.  Enright  and  Grace  M.  McClure,  and 
other  Chicago  artists  who  were  then  students  at  the  Art  Insti- 
tute, did  most  of  the  illustrating  for  the  periodical.  Although 
so  attractive  in  its  way,  the  Blue  Sky  Magazine  found  its  con- 
stituency limited  to  a  small  cult.     The  publishers  saw  "glim- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  807 

merings  of  prosperity"  the  second  year,  but  the  magazine  was 
merged  with  another  short-Hved  Chicago  periodical,  Rubric,  "a 
magazine  de  luxe,"  which  the  "Skytes"  said  in  their  adieu  was 
"the  only  purely  literary  and  artistic  magazine  whose  policy  was 
sufficiently  consistent  with  that  of  the  Blue  Sky  to  allow  a 
reasonable  fusion." 

The  Scroll  was  the  name  of  another  periodical,  evidently 
of  this  general  artist-dilettante  group,  which  was  listed  as 
"literary"  in  the  newspaper  annuals  of  1902  and  1903,  when  its 
founding  date  was  given  as  1899;  but  from  the  collections  oi 
files  and  the  recollections  of  literary  workers  no  further  informa- 
tion about  it  is  attainable. 

All  of  these  magazines,  with  the  line  of  artist-class  sentiment 
woven  into  their  literary  texture,  may  possibly  be  characterized 
in  a  general  way  as  examples  of  I'Art  Nouveau  in  letters. 

The  cosmopolitan  outlook  given  to  Chicago  by  the  World's 
Columbian  Exposition  stood  out  in  five  or  six  general  magazines 
attempted  in  the  latter  part  of  the  nineties.  In  them  this  aspect 
of  the  social  influences  left  by  the  Fair  was  to  be  seen  more 
clearly  than  in  the  illustrated  and  artistic  journals  which  were 
the  chief  crop  of  the  period.  They  show  that  the  western  cos- 
mopolitanism mentioned  in  the  introductory  paragraphs  of  the 
first  in  this  series  of  papers  on  literary  interests  had  been  reached. 
The  spirit  of  westernism  retained  potency,  but  the  current  idea 
was  that  cosmopolitan  products  could  and  should  come  out  of 
this  western  center. 

A  title  of  purely  cosmopolitan  connotation  had  been  given  to 
no  periodical  started  in  Chicago  in  a  previous  decade.  The  most 
typical  and  significant  of  those  with  tlie  enlarged  point  of  view 
was  first  issued  in  1896,  and  was  named  the  International.  It 
was  published  much  longer  than  a  majority  of  the  ephemeral 
magazines  of  Chicago, 

The  first  role  which  the  International  took  on  the  publishing 
stage  made  it  unquestionably  a  cosmopolite.  Its  pages  were 
filled  with  translations — described  by  the  magazine  as  "Eng- 
lished"— of  stories  which  had  been  published  in  the  contem- 
porary   literary    periodicals    of    France,     Spain,     Italy,     Ger- 


8o8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

many,  Russia,  Hungary,  and  Japan.  The  theory  of  the  pub- 
Hsher  was  that  the  American  reading  pubHc,  while  made  famihar 
with  the  poHtics,  crime,  and  superficial  events  of  the  foreign 
countries  through  the  daily  newspapers,  has  no  means  of  know- 
ing the  literature  of  the  nations  as  it  grows  from  month  to 
month.  As  the  Worlds'  Fair  had  spread  before  American  eyes 
the  products  of  the  industrial  arts  of  all  peoples,  so  the  Inter- 
national was  to  lay  before  them  regularly  the  typical  literary 
productions  of  the  times.  It  was  printed  in  regular  7X10  inch 
covered  magazine  form,  and  on  supercalendered  instead  of 
coated  paper,  thus  giving  a  medium  for  exceptional  half-tone 
illustrations. 

A  successful  organizer  of  an  industrial  trust,  Mr.  A.  T.  H. 
Brower,  was  the  founder,  editor,  and  publisher  of  the  Inter- 
national. Mr.  Brower  had  been  a  prosperous  business  man  in 
the  printing-press  and  type-founderc;'  trade  at  Chicago  for  many 
years,  and  in  1892,  during  the  first  period  of  the  industrial  con- 
solidations, had  been  the  promoter  of  the  American  Type- 
Founders'  Company,  which  includes  all  the  leading  type-found- 
ing concerns  in  the  country.  He  was  its  secretary  and  manager 
until  1894,  when  he  retired  from  active  participation  in  its 
affairs,  though  retaining  a  place  on  the  directorate.  As  a  mature 
business  man  of  the  captain-of-industry  type,  going  into  maga- 
zine-publishing at  Chicago,  he  stands  out  in  contrast  with  the 
many  young  men  who,  without  business  experience  and  capital 
have  undertaken  to  establish  periodicals  here.  Being  well  supplied 
with  capital,  Mr.  Brower  went  into  the  venture  confident  that  he 
was  prepared  to  see  it  through  on  a  business  basis.  But  his 
ambition  was  also  spiced  with  local  pride.  A  man  of  general 
culture,  born  in  New  York,  but  proud  of  his  place  as  a  Chi- 
cagoan,  Mr.  Brower  then  said,  as  he  repeats  today: 

Chicago  is  called  "Porkopolis."  But  there  is  as  much  culture  in  pro- 
portion to  population  here  as  anywhere.  Chicago  as  well  as  New  York 
ought  to  have  successful  literary  magazines. 

One  experiment  after  another  was  tried  by  him  in  the  deter- 
mination to  make  the  International  successful.  An  entire  year 
was  taken  for  preliminary  preparations  for  No.  i  of  Vol.  I.     To 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  809 

secure  the  stories  from  the  various  nations,  Mr.  Brower  carried 
on  a  correspondence  with  magazine-publishers  all  over  the  world, 
made  arrangements  under  the  various  copyright  regulations,  and 
secured  the  services  of  skilled  translators  residing  at  different 
places  in  America.  He  estimated  that  the  market  for  the  Inter- 
national's presentation  of  foreign  literary  products  should  be 
found  among  50,000  cultured  people  of  this  country.  But  only 
1,500  became  interested  enough  to  send  annual  subscriptions  to 
the  magazine.  A  lack  of  support  from  Chicago  and  the  Missis- 
sippi valley  was  particularly  discouraging  to  the  publisher,  since 
Dr.  Albert  Shaw,  editor  of  the  Review  of  Reviews,  had  told 
him  that  two-thirds  of  that  magazine's  constituency  was  in  this 
section.  The  unique  character  of  the  International  called  out  a 
sporadic  circulation  in  nineteen  nations.  But  that  did  not  help 
much.  After  a  year  and  a  half  the  translations  were  discontin- 
ued. An  "International  Register"  of  Americans  going  abroad 
was  next  introduced  as  a  leading  feature  of  the  magazine.  This 
was  a  list  of  names  of  travelers  and  tourists  classified  by  states. 
But  the  pains  required  for  compiling  it  were  too  great  to  make 
this  experiment  anything  but  costly.  Then  after  the  Spanish- 
American  War,  when  there  were  signs  of  interest  in  the  Spanish 
tongue,  a  novel  scheme  for  teaching  modern  languages  was  un- 
dertaken. Lessons  in  Spanish  were  outlined  in  the  magazine. 
Graphophones  and  cylinders  for  use  in  a  sort  of  mechanical  con- 
versational method  of  self -education  were  offered  for  sale  to 
subscribers.  But  few  of  them,  however,  took  interest  in  grapho- 
phone  Spanish,  and  contemplated  magazine  lessons  in  German  and 
French  were  not  given  by  the  International.  Travel-letters  writ- 
ten by  American  visitors  to  out-of-the-way  places,  and  general 
travel-notes  by  the  editor,  were  published  in  all  stages  of  the 
experiments  with  the  magazine.  Toward  its  end,  when  the 
price  per  copy  had  been  reduced  to  ten  cents,  Mr.  Brower,  in 
the  hope  of  alluring  the  masses,  inserted  trashy,  popular  stories 
of  a  kind  in  which  he  had  no  personal  interest. 

In  seeking  advertising  this  Chicago  business  man  found  that 
other  Chicago  business  men  had  the  same  sentiment  he  had  about 
a  Chicago  magazine,  but  that  they  did  not  have  advertising  to 


8io  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

place  in  such  a  medium — at  least  not  until  he  ccmld  show  a  circula- 
tion of  15,000.  At  one  time  in  the  first  eighteen  months  the  maga- 
zine was  nearly  self-supporting,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  if  the 
original  character  derived  from  the  translations  had  been  main- 
tained the  International  might  have  found  a  permanent  place  for 
itself.  Mr.  Brower  sunk  $10,000  a  year  in  it  for  six  years,  and 
in  July,  1901,  discontinued  experimenting.     Today  he  says: 

To  publish  a  literary  magazine,  three  things  are  needed:  business  sense, 
literary  sense,  and  money — and  the  business  sense  must  be  that  of  the 
publishing  business. 

The  influence  of  the  University  of  Chicago  upon  the  literary 
interests  of  the  city,  during  the  fifteen  years  in  which  the  uni- 
versity has  been  one  of  the  institutions  of  the  community,  has 
grown  to  be  great.  At  the  present  time  it  is  to  be  seen  in  many 
directions,  and  is  recognized  as  specially  direct  in  one  of  the 
general  magazines  published  in  the  city.  From  the  day  the  uni- 
versity opened  its  doors,  its  potential  influences  were  regarded 
by  men  down-town  as  including  a  new  force  for  development 
of  literary  activity.  In  1893,  when  the  professors  and  students 
on  its  quadrangles  were  living  in  a  university  atmosphere  vibrant 
with  the  noise  of  natives  of  foreign  lands  which  came  to  the 
campus  from  beyond  the  fence  of  the  Midway  Plaisance,  the 
university's  unofficial  sanction  was  sought  for  Current  Topics, 
a  magazine  begun  in  that  year  by  a  promoter  of  certain  business 
schemes  named  David  Wever,  who  had  a  publishing  office  for 
the  periodical  in  the  Masonic  Temple.  Mr.  Wever,  as  both  editor 
and  publisher,  endeavored  to  give — and,  judging  from  the  recol- 
lections of  down-town  literary  workers,  and  also  from  those  of 
some  members  of  the  faculties,  succeeded  in  giving — the  im- 
pression that  the  magazine  had  some  sort  of  University  of  Chi- 
cago sanction.  The  publishing  of  contributions  from  the  pro- 
fessors and  students  of  the  university  was  the  method  followed 
in  giving  this  impression.  These  were  articles  in  the  more  serious 
vein  of  literary  criticism,  and  helped  greatly  to  fill  the  eighty- 
four  pages  in  the  rather  solid-appearing  journal  printed  in  the 
regular  magazine  form,  and  bound  in  a  heavy  blue  cover.  Not 
only  contributions  written  especially  for  it,  but  also  papers  pre- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  8ii 

pared  for  other  purposes,  were  solicited  for  the  magazine.  One 
of  the  most  notable  contributions  was  an  article  on  Taine  by 
Professor  Paul  Shorey,  Ph.D.,  head  of  the  department  of  the 
Greek  language  and  literature  at  the  University.  For  a  time, 
Dr.  Edwin  H.  Lewis,  now  professor  of  literature  at  Lewis  In- 
stitute, then  an  assistant  in  rhetoric  on  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago faculty  in  the  department  of  English,  was  active,  not  only 
in  contributing  to  Current  Topics,  but  in  securing  contributions 
for  the  magazine  from  other  university  men.  Soon,  however, 
it  was  discovered  that  the  publisher  did  not  carry  out  his  agree- 
ments to  pay  for  the  contributions  he  readily  accepted,  and  that 
the  university  men  were  being  used  to  give  prestige  to  a  maga- 
zine which  was  part  of  an  advertising  device  for  selling  pianos. 
The  university  authors  discontinued  contributing,  and  it  is  al- 
leged that  the  man  who  was  a  magazine-publisher  for  a  time  still 
owes  some  of  them  for  the  serious  work  they  did  for  his  periodi- 
cal. The  name  of  the  magazine  was  changed  to  the  Chicago  Mag- 
azine of  Current  Topics,  and  later  to  Chicago  Magazine.  It  went 
out  of  existence  in  1895,  having  been  published  for  about  two 
years.  Dr.  Lewis  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  history  of  Current 
Topics  has  no  more  significance  in  the  consideration  of  the  literary 
interests  of  Chicago  than  any  advertising  scheme  has.  It  appears 
to  have  been  an  example  of  the  engraftment  of  interests,  with 
a  considerable  element  of  plain  graft  involved. 

A  University  of  Chicago  student  from  the  West,  Frank  Bur- 
lingame  Harris,  who  became  a  Chicago  newspaper  man,  under- 
took the  establishing  of  a  general  magazine  in  1898.  Mr.  Har- 
ris was  a  friend  of  Opie  Read,  Forrest  Crissey,  and  other  literary 
workers  in  the  Press  Club  ranks.  He  rejected  the  name  Ro- 
mantic Life,  suggested  to  him  for  the  periodical  by  Mr.  Read, 
and  christened  it,  after  the  lake  at  the  southern  border  of  the 
city,  the  Calumet,  thus  giving  the  journal  a  name  intended  to 
connote  the  western  romantic  sentiment.  Mr.  Harris  started  by 
inserting  more  essays  than  stories.  But  two  numbers  were  pub- 
lished. Mr.  Harris  had  undertaken  the  enterprise  almost  with- 
out capital — a  lack  which  literary  sentiment  could  hardly  offset. 

Carter's  Monthly  was  a   general   story  magazine  begun   in 


8i2  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

1898  by  a  printer  named  John  Carter,  who  came  to  Chicago 
from  Streator,  111.  An  advertisement  of  Carter's  Monthly,  ap- 
pearing in  Arts  for  America,  announced  one  policy  in  keeping 
with  a  trend  in  publishing  during  the  World's  Columbian  Expo- 
sition decade;  namely,  that  the  magazine  would  contain  repro- 
ductions of  192  paintings  by  famous  masters.  Opie  Read  per- 
mitted the  use  of  his  name  as  editor.  A  serial  by  John  McGovem 
was  extensively  advertised.  Within  a  few  months,  however. 
Carter  dropped  the  stories  and  devoted  the  bulk  of  his  space  to 
laudatory  articles  concerning  some  of  the  department  stores. 
Mr.  Read  says  that  he  then  endeavored  to  have  his  name  re- 
moved from  the  head  of  the  page  containing  the  table  of  con- 
tents in  the  periodical,  but  in  vain.  By  the  end  of  a  year, 
however,  the  local  write-ups  had  brought  Carter's  Monthly  to  a 
deserved  death. 

Literary  efforts  and  temperance  news  were  used  in  con- 
coction of  an  oddity  among  the  periodicals  put  out  at  Chicago 
in  the  nineties.  This  queer  paper  was  named  the  Banner  of 
Gold.  It  was  started  with  the  support  of  several  of  the  "old 
guard"  of  literary  newspaper  men  belonging  to  the  Press  Club — 
"good  fellows"  who  in  more  ways  than  that  of  writing  had  un- 
fortunately followed  the  example  of  "Bobbie"  Bums.  Having 
been  at  Dwight,  111.,  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Leslie  E.  Keeley, 
some  of  these  men  were  enrolled  as  members  of  "The  Bichloride 
of  Gold  Club  of  America."  They  conceived  the  idea  that  the 
reading  world  should  be  informed  on  the  merits  of  Dr.  Keeley's 
uses  for  bichloride  of  gold,  and  that  news  along  this  line  could 
be  best  set  off  with  sparkling  gems  of  new  literature,  fresh  and 
pure  as  prairie  dewdrops.  Further,  it  was  expected  that  the 
journal  would  prove  to  be  an  outlet  for  the  excitements  of  re- 
newed literary  activity.  When  the  first  weekly  number  appeared, 
February  10,  1892,  Charles  Eugene  Banks,  a  newspaper  writer 
and  poet,  who  has  written  a  great  deal  of  verse,  some  of  which 
touches  the  heart  like  that  of  Riley,  and  also  is  marked  by  beauty 
in  the  use  of  word  and  meter,  was  the  editor.  An  outpouring  of 
rhymed  enthusiasm  from  his  pen,  appearing  at  the  top  of  the 
first  column  in  the  first  number,  contained  the  following: 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  813 

Then  down  with  the  grinning  old  skull  of  despair; 
In  the  army  of  hope  we're  enrolled. 
From  ice-berg  to  palm-tree  fling  free  to  the  air 
The  banner  "Bichloride  of  Gold." 

For  some  time  the  periodical  was  chiefly  literary,  and  was  a 
medium  for  stories  and  verse  used  by  a  considerable  group  of 
Chicago  men  engaged  in  a  fair  order  of  literary  endeavor. 
Among  the  contributors  to  early  numbers  were  Opie  Read, 
Stanley  Waterloo,  George  Horton,  John  McGovern,  and  William 
Lightfoot  Visscher;  and  the  paper  secured  a  following  among 
readers  interested  only  in  the  part  of  its  contents  which  were  of 
a  literary  nature.  But  after  a  few  months  some  of  the  writers 
who  had  been  members  of  the  "Bichloride  of  Gold  Club"  sur- 
rendered their  membership,  and  the  periodical,  which  is  still  pub- 
lished as  a  monthly  organ  for  the  gold-cure,  lost  entirely  its 
literary  admixture. 

In  1893.  when  socio-economic  congresses  were  held  in  con- 
nection with  the  World's  Fair,  a  magazine  designed  to  give  a 
popular  presentation  of  social  and  political  questions,  but  in  such 
a  form  as  compared  with  newspaper-writing  that  it  was  rated  as 
literary,  was  begun.  It  bore  the  name  New  Occasions.  The 
first  editor,  B.  F.  Underwood,  was  succeeded  by  Frederick  Up- 
ham  Adams,  who  is  today  a  general  magazine  and  newspaper 
syndicate  writer  on  these  subjects.  In  1897  New  Occasions 
was  merged  in  Nezv  Time,  of  which  Mr.  Adams,  at  Chicago,  and 
B.  O.  Flower,  at  Boston,  were  the  joint  editors.  Mr.  Flower 
was  the  founder  of  the  Arena,  and  had  a  large  personal  follow- 
ing. The  July,  1897,  number  said  "Chicago-Boston"  in  its  im- 
print, and  mentioned  a  union  of  West  and  East.  But  in  April, 
1898,  Mr.  Flower  sent  his  valedictory,  in  which  he  said:  "For 
some  time  I  have  felt  it  impossible  to  perform  the  duties  of 
senior  editor  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  myself,  while  living 
1,000  miles  from  the  office  of  publication."  Mr.  Adams  contin- 
ued editing  the  magazine  and  writing  for  it,  particularly  in  op- 
position to  the  existing  money  system,  declaring  that  it  was  his 
ambition  "to  aid  in  the  founding  of  a  magazine  on  the  rock  of 
economic  truth."  In  June,  1898,  he  complained  that  only  about 


8l4  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

$3,200  in  small  amounts,  received  from  all  over  the  United 
States,  had  been  paid  in  for  capital  stock,  and  pleaded  for  public 
subscriptions,  not  only  for  the  periodical,  but  also  for  its  stock. 
However,  a  file  in  the  Chicago  Public  Library  shows  no  copies 
of  a  date  later  than  the  one  containing  that  appeal. 

Self -Culture  and  Progress,  both  brought  out  at  Chicago  in 
1895,  were  two  literary  magazines  of  the  home-study  type, 
which  will  be  given  further  mention  in  the  part  of  the  next  paper 
tracing  one  of  the  lines  oi  development  incidentally  influential  in 
leading  to  the  establishment  of  The  World  To-Day,  the  most 
important  of  the  Chicago  magazines  of  the  present  decade. 

An  unusual  use  of  the  story  form  in  a  periodical  with  a  slight 
educational  bias  was  made  in  Historia,  a  monthly  magazine 
published  in  Chicago  for  two  years  prior  to  the  financial  crash  of 
1893.  Accounts  from  the  histories  of  the  leading  nations,  re- 
written in  romantic  style  for  boys  and  girls  between  the  ages  of 
twelve  and  twenty,  were  printed  in  this  periodical.  Using  ten 
noTJis  de  plume,  Fred  B.  Cozzens,  a  young  man  who  as  a  student 
at  Northwestern  University  had  been  specially  interested  in 
history,  and  who  had  also  done  some  editorial  page  work  for  an 
afternoon  daily,  performed  single-handed  all  of  the  duties  of 
contributor,  editor,  and  publisher.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
general  interest  in  history  aroused  by  plans  for  the  exposition 
commemorating  the  discovery  of  America  had  some  influence  in 
leading  Mr.  Cozzens  to  undertake  Historia.  His  magazine  was 
illustrated  with  zinc-etching  reproductions  of  pictures  from  old 
histories  not  copyrighted,  and  with  some  sketches  by  John  T. 
McCutcheon,  the  cartoonist.  At  one  time  Historia  had  a  circu- 
lation of  8,000  including  many  subscribers  among  school  chil- 
dren who  used  the  magazine  for  supplementary  reading.  But 
Mr.  Cozzens  possessed  little  capital,  although  he  is  now  the  pro- 
prietor of  a  successful  type-setting  business,  and  his  credit  was 
taken  away  with  the  failure  of  a  bank  which  had  backed  him  in 
the  Historia  venture.  He  turned  the  magazine  over  to  a  mail- 
order jeweler,  who  soon  got  into  trouble  with  the  postoffice  de- 
partment by  publishing  his  entire  catalogue  in  the  advertising 
pages  of  the  periodical. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  815 

A  visit  to  the  World's  Columbian  Exposition  led  Claude 
King,  the  editor  and  publisher  of  Sports  Afield,  an  interesting 
magazine  which  he  had  built  up  at  Denver  from  a  small  begin- 
ning with  a  sportsmen's  newspaper,  founded  in  1887,  to  remove 
his  headquarters  to  Chicago  in  1893.  As  a  New  York  printer 
w^ho  had  learned  his  trade  while  an  apprentice  of  the  Harper  firm, 
Mr.  King,  ever  since  moving  to  the  West,  had  been  a  faithful 
reader  of  the  New  York  Sun.  From  that  paper's  pungent  para- 
graphs he  had  gained  the  impression  that  Chicago  and  its  World's 
Fair  were  jokes.  But  Mr.  King,  who  still  publishes  his  maga- 
zine for  a  constituency  of  about  300,000  subscribers,  says  that 
seeing  Chicago  and  the  "White  City"  so  impressed  him  that  he 
at  once  decided  to  move  from  a  center  of  influence  for  a  part  of 
the  West  to  the  metropolis  of  the  entire  section  known  as  the 
West.  Sports  Afield,  of  which  half  the  contents  are  short 
stories  of  outdoor  experiences  designed  to  be  purely  entertain- 
ing, and  half  are  articles  on  natural  history  and  scientific  sub- 
jects intended  to  be  instructive,  is  a  magazine  well  calculated  to 
interest  typical  western  men  and  boys  in  the  towns  and  villages 
and  sparsely  settled  localities.  Although  of  but  mediocre  literary 
quality,  its  written  contents,  supplemented  by  illustrations,  are 
of  direct  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  interest.  Two-thirds  of  the  mag- 
azine's revenues  are  derived  from  subscriptions,  which  is 
unusual.  The  circulation  was  built  up  in  the  old-fashioned  way 
of  personal  visits  by  the  editor.  In  largest  part,  the  magazine 
goes  to  the  Northwest.  Mr.  King  makes  the  comment  that  the 
people  of  the  Southwest,  while  having  a  like  interest  in  its  con- 
tents to  that  of  those  in  the  Northwest,  are  not  "businessfied," 
are  reluctant  to  subscribe,  and  when  they  do  give  subscription 
orders  forget  to  remit  payments. 

Besides  the  phases  of  periodical  publishing  at  Chicago  in  the 
nineties,  shown  in  this  paper,  there  was  also  a  large  increase  in  the 
number  of  papers  in  the  mail-order  grade  of  so-called  literary 
periodicals.  As  practically  all  of  these  "family-story"  papers 
started  in  the  nineties  still  prosper,  this  development  in  that 
period  will  be  treated  in  the  paper  which  is  to  follow  on  the 
periodicals  of  the  present  decade. 


8l6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  statistics  compiled  for  this  series  of  papers  show  that 
70  of  the  306  Hterary  periodicals  of  all  types  started  in  Chicago 
were  begun  in  the  World's  Fair  decade.  Of  this  number,  23  per 
cent,  were  illustrated ;  1 1  per  cent,  were  devoted  to  the  fine  arts ; 
9  per  cent,  were  of  the  quaint  and  curious  artist-class  literary 
type;  19  per  cent.,  of  the  unqualified  literary  type;  7  per  cent., 
of  the  literary  information  variety;  and  23  per  cent.,  of  the 
family-story  grade.  The  percentages  for  those  of  other  types 
were  small.  Twenty-nine  per  cent,  belonged  to  more  than  one 
classification,  especially  those  classed  as  illustrated.  Those  pub- 
lished monthly  numbered  56,  and  the  weeklies  but  9,  in  contrast 
with  41  monthlies  and  25  weeklies  in  the  eighties.  But  many  of 
the  monthlies  were  in  journal  form,  the  total  of  weeklies  and 
monthlies  in  this  form  being  47,  while  20  appeared  in  regulation 
magazine  form.  Twenty-seven  of  the  70  lived  but  a  year  or 
less,  and  only  9  of  the  number  begun  in  the  nineties  are  still 
published. 


THE     LITERARY     INTERESTS     OF     CHICAGO.     VI 

AND  VII 


HERBERT  E.  FLEMING 
University  of  Chicago 


VI.    THE  COMMERCIALIZED  MAGAZINES  OF  A  COSMOPOLITAN 
CENTER,  1900  TO  DATE 

"Where  Is  the  West?  It  would  be  easier  to  tell  where  is  the  East.  That 
is  always  toward  the  Atlantic.  Boston  is  East  to  Cleveland;  Chicago  is  East 
to  Colorado,  and  everything  this  side  of  the  Cascade  Mountains  is  East  to  the 
Pacific  coast.  It  amounts  to  this :  The  West  is  where  a  man  is ;  the  East 
is  where  his  father  came  from.  So  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  West  has  no 
fixed  geographical  limits  like  the  South  and  New  England.  It  is  something 
more  than  a  geographical  term.     Like  Boston  it  is  a  state  of  mind 

"The  West  means  Americans  who  are  controlled  by  certain  ideas  and 
motives.  But  American  does  not  mean  Anglo-Saxon  beyond  the  Alleghanies. 
It  is  never,  strictly  speaking,  a  matter  of  descent ;  but  this  is  doubly  true  of 
that  region  where  blood  and  ideas  and  habits  of  every  people  under  the  sun 
are  fusing  into  a  new  race.     Inevitably  the  West  is  cosmopolitan 

"The  West  is  a  synonym  of  vitality.  No  region  knows  larger  zest  in  life. 
Whether  it  be  in  farming  or  in  literature,  it  finds  the  world  full  of 
novelty 

"And  the  West  is  also  a  synonym  for  democracy —  ....  — that  democ- 
racy of  practice  which  sees  a  partner  in  every  man  and  woman  who  is 
accomplishing  something 

"The  old  West  with  its  romance  is  all  but  past The  West,  with  its 

boundless  interest  in  life,  with  its  passion  for  creation,  and  with  its  democ- 
racy, is  still  new.  The  visitor  from  the  East  finds  it  crude,  and  often  frankly 
materialistic  in  its  judgments.  But  the  crudity  is  disappearing  in  actual 
achievement,  and  the  materalism,  if  more  frank,  is  less  treacherous  than  high 
finance.  The  West  is  human  and  so  imperfect,  but  it  is  sincere.  It  is  rough, 
but  it  is  being  educated. 

"As  a  locality  it  may  be  shifting,  but  as  a  state  of  mind  it  is  America  in 
the    making." — From    the    World    To-Day,    Chicago,    February,    1905. 

A  few  ma:gazines,  popular  through  certain  Hterary  forms  of 
presentation  and  on  account  of  their  pictures,  have  grown  up  in 
Chicago  during  the  present  decade  and  have  found  places,  appar- 

68 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  69 

ently  permanent,  in  a  good  part  of  the  market  sought  by  the 
general  periodical  publishers  of  New  York.  They  have  been, 
and  are,  edited  in  such  a  manner  as  to  reflect  the  social  influences 
emanating  from  a  city  having  the  particular  type  of  cosmopolitan 
character  now  attained  by  Chicago.  They  have  been,  and  are, 
published  with  that  strict  attention  to  the  commercial  side  which 
is  one  of  the  marked  characteristics  of  a  metropolis  whose  substan- 
tial citizens  are  now  constantly  proclaiming  it  to  be  "the  Great 
Central  Market."  The  World  To-Day  and  the  Red  Book  are  the 
most  important  and  significant  of  these  present-day  magazines. 
The  Sunday  Magazine,  unique  in  its  development  as  an  adjunct 
to  the  Sunday  edition  of  a  daily  newspaper,  the  Record-Herald, 
also  shows  some  of  the  same  points.  There  are  others  currently 
published,  as  well  as  some  no  longer  appearing,  which  are  of 
interest  in  considering  the  literary  publishing  undertaken  at 
Chicago  since  1900. 

That  cosmopolitanism  is  the  general  characteristic  of  Chicago 
today  will  doubtless  be  granted.  It  has  been  pointed  out  in  the 
foregoing  papers  that  the  insistent  western  sectionalism  of  the 
prairie  days,  when  Chicago  was  a  small  pioneer  town,  became 
modified  by  a  new  national  spirit  following  the  Civil  War;  that 
Chicago  came  to  feel  world-sympathy  and  also  inner  power  from 
rapid  growth  toward  a  large  city's  dimensions  in  the  years  fol- 
lowing the  fire  of  1871;  that  in  the  eighties  the  community 
attained  the  consciousness  of  being  a  material  metropolis;  and 
that  for  a  brief  time  in  the  nineties  it  was  a  world-center  of 
kaleidoscopic,  external  cosmopolitan  activity.  The  city  of  the 
present  has  inherited  these  traditions.  They  have  become  traits 
of  Chicago's  community  character,  a  fund  of  standing  opinion, 
now  held  in  a  new  combination.  But  what  is  the  essential  char- 
acteristic of  the  cosmopolitanism  of  Chicago*  today?  In  gen- 
eral it  may  be  defined  as  an  internal  cosmopolitanism.  It  is  not 
the  dazzling  kind  that  comes  from  the  temporary  residence  in 
a  nation's  leading  center  of  a  shifting  crowd  of  interesting  cos- 
mopolites, citizens  of  the  world  with  no  very  strong  national 
attachments,  such  as  there  is  in  Paris,  and  as  there  is  in  a  lesser 
degree  in  New  York.     It  is  a  different  type  of  life  in  the  large, 


70  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

yet  constantly  and  with  accuracy  described  as  cosmopolitan.  It 
is  the  fusing  in  a  composite,  permanent,  resident  people  of  a  great 
congeries  of  elements  from  Old  and  New  World  civilization;  the 
interplay,  in  one  community,  of  factors  derived  from  all  parts  of 
Europe,  and  from  America's  East,  South,  and  West.  From 
such  combining  of  varying  elements,  according  to  frequent  state- 
ments by  the  publicists,  comes  whatever  is  typically  American 
today.  That  is,  the  distinctively  American  is  now  cosmopolitan. 
The  process  which  brings  this  about  is  possible  only  in  a  large 
city,  a  metropolis  of  such  dimensions  as  to  be  an  immense  crucible. 
New  York,  being  the  largest  city  in  the  country  and  a  metropolis 
permanently  composed  of  many  elements  of  population,  and  also 
constantly  visited  by  a  shifting  crowd  of  cosmopolites  such  as  is 
not  often  seen  elsewhere  in  the  United  States,  is,  of  course,  the 
most  cosmopolitan  center  in  America.  Since,  however,  the  chan- 
ging dress  of  external  cosmopolitan  life  is  most  conspicuous  there, 
and  since  New  York  is  largely  lacking  in  the  western  pioneer 
element,  as  a  cosmopolis  it  is  not  purely  typical  of  the  developing 
character  of  America,  with  its  inner  fusing  of  heterogeneous 
elements.  Chicago,  having  practically  no  exterior  cosmopolitan 
aspect,  and  being  the  western  center  for  j>ermanent  co-ordinating 
of  a  most  comprehensive  group  of  differing  racial  elements,  is 
perhaps  the  most  typical  American  city.  At  any  rating  given,  it 
is  certainly  conspicuous  for  what  has  been  described  here  as 
internal  cosmopolitanism. 

Among  the  influences  felt  from  the  traditions  held  by  the  vari- 
ous elements  in  Chicago's  population  of  2,000.000,  the  one  coming 
from  the  New  England  men  who'  settled  here,  or  near  here, 
is  commanding.  It  permeates  the  life  of  the  town.  The  "I  Will" 
attitude  expressed  in  the  city's  motto,  the  determination  to  do 
things,  first  in  commercial  and  industrial  enterprise,  and  then  in 
general,  comes  most  notably  from  this'  element.  The  Puritan 
aspect  of  this  Anglo-Saxon  influence  has  been  greatly  modified  by 
the  traditional  attitudes  of  the  great  colonies  oi  people  from  every 
European  nation,  who  have  become  component  parts  of  the  com- 
munity. More  than  a  score  of  foreign  languages  are  spoken 
here  by  permanent  residents.     The  numbers  of  people  using  the 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  71 

various  tongues,  pointed  out  in  estimates  by  Professor  Carl 
Darling  Buck,  in  "A  Sketch  of  the  Ling^iistic  Conditions  in 
Chicago,"  Vol.  VI  oi  The  Decennial  Publications  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago,  1903,  is  as  follows  : 

German  500,000  French 15,000 

Polish    125,000  Irish  10,000 

Swedish 100,000  Croatian  and  Servian  10,000 

Bohemian  90,000  Slovakian    10,000 

Norwegian   50,000  Lithuanian   10,000 

Yiddish   50,000  Russian  7,000 

Dutch 35,000  Hungarian   5,ooo 

Italian    25,000  Greek 4,000 

Danish 20,000 

And  Frisian,  Roumanian,  Welsh,  Slovenian,  Flemish,  Chinese,  and  Spanish, 

each  by  1,000  or  more. 

Chicago  is  the  fifth  German  city  in  the  world,  the  third 
Swedish,  the  fourth  Polish,  and  the  second  Bohemian. 

For  many  years  the  German  element  has  been  considered  of 
great  influence  in  shaping  the  chaiacter  of  Chicago.  "The  most 
notable  characteristic  of  Chicago's  foreign  population  is  the 
strength  of  the  Scandinavian  and  Slavic  elements,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Buck  in  his  monograph.  "No  other  city  in  the  country 
contains  anything  like  as  many  representatives  of  these  groups. 
The  Slavs  number  a  quarter  of  a  million."  He  points  out  that  in 
the  Chicago  linguistic  grouping,  Slavic  comes  next  to  Germanic, 
a  "place  which  would  be  occupied  by  Romance  in  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  or  Boston." 

The  most  recent  arrivals,  ignorant  immigrants  from  south- 
eastern Europe,  belonging  exclusively  tOi  the  industrial  group, 
have  made  no  direct  contributions  to  the  literary  and  general 
artistic  interests  of  the  city.  But  the  great  majority  of  the 
colonies  of  foreign-boni,  through  their  dramatic  and  singing 
societies  and  other  organizations,  have  added  some  elements  to 
the  general  artistic  activities  and  interests  oi  the  community. 

The  very  amalgamation  of  the  groups  of  foreign  origin  in  the 
common  life  of  the  community — a  process  that  seems  incredibly 
rapid  in  its  realization — causes  a  spread  of  the  manifold  effects  of 
the  many  racial  heritages,  even  though  they  are  felt  in  modified 
forms.  The  maintenance  of  European  customs  as  to  drinking 
and  Sunday  recreation  by  the  social  organizations  of  the  Euro- 


72  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

pean-Americans  has  brought  about  a  general  attitude  of  liberality 
regarding  personal  habits.  Notwithstanding  occasional  reactions 
by  the  ultra-Puritans  among  the  leading  element  of  the  popula- 
tion, their  own  customs  have  changed. 

The  public  schools  are  the  greatest  melting-pot.  Concerning 
the  Chicago-born  children  of  the  city's  foreign-born  population, 
Professor  Buck,  says : 

The  second  generation  is  bi-lingual.  The  children  first  learn  their  mother- 
tongue,  but  as  soon  as  they  are  on  the  street  and  in  school  they  learn  English, 
and  it  is  not  long  before  they  speak  it  by  preference.  The  third  generation, 
even  of  unmixed  foreign  descent,  knows  only  English. 

The  daily  newspapers  have  a  great  influence  in  giving  com- 
mon interests  and  a  common  community-consciousness  to  the 
many  elements  in  the  composite  citizenship.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  sixty-seven  newspapers,  including  fourteen  dailies,  printed 
in  foreign  languages  in  Chicago.  The  editor  of  one  of  these 
papers  informed  the  writer  that,  if  it  were  not  for  the  continued 
acquisitions  from  uninterrupted  immigration,  it  would  be  only  a 
few  years  before  papers  printed  in  the  foreign  languages  would 
be  discontinued,  as  would  the  use  of  the  foreign  tongues  at  church 
services.  The  great  metropolitan  newspapers  of  Chicago,  in 
response  to  the  broad  range  of  interests  naturally  held  by  the 
mixed  population  of  Chicago  and  the  North  Central  States,  are 
notable  for  the  national  and  cosmopolitan  view  of  American  and 
foreign  events  which  they  present  daily.  It  is  a  safe  assertion 
that  the  Chicago  papers  give  a  better-proportioned  presentation  of 
the  news  of  the  whole  world  than  do  those  of  New  York,  where 
a  much  greater  amount  of  space,  proportionally,  is  taken  up  with 
the  news  of  New  Yorkers,  whose  typical  attitude  seems  inclined 
to  be  that  their  metropolis  is  world  enough  in  itself.  The  social 
settlements,  a  belt  of  them  established  in  the  densely  populated 
river  districts,  northwest,  west,  and  southwest  of  the  heart  of  the 
city,  are  common  meeting-ground  for  some  accentuation,  and 
chiefly  for  amalgamation  of  diverse  interests'. 

Participation  in  political  life,  particularly  as  it  relates  to 
municipal  affairs,  provides  a  constantly  absorbing  common  inter- 
est to  all  the  people  of  Chicago.     A  great  deal  that  is  of  signifi- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  73 

cance  as  to  world-wide  movements  in  the  readjustment  of  social 
and  economic  relationships  is  fomenting  in  Chicago.  The  strati- 
fication of  classes  on  the  economic  basis,  with  the  houses  of  the 
poor  in  the  river  wards  and  those  of  the  prosperous  at  favored 
sites  along  the  shore  of  the  lake,  is  distinct.  Socialistic  ideas, 
often  brought  directly  by  persons  who'  have  been  under  the 
influence  of  socialistic  leaders  in  Europe,  are  in  the  air.  The 
socialization  of  the  urban  transportation  system  is  the  leading  local 
issue  of  the  decade  and  has  held  attention  for  years.  Both 
organized  labor  and  organized  capital  are  strongly  intrenched  in 
Chicago,  and  make  the  city  and  its  streets  their  battlefield. 
Through  all  the  confusion  and  controversy,  there  are  many  mani- 
festations of  the  democratic  character  of  the  community. 

Besides  the  social  and  economic  conditions  showing  the  inter- 
nal cosmopolitanism  of  Chicago,  there  is  a  great  variety  of  cul- 
tural interests,  which  are  developments  of  cultivated  cosmopoli- 
tanism. The  Theodore  Thomas  Orchestra  and  Orchestra  Hall, 
and  the  Art  Institute,  have  been  cited  in  foregoing  papers.  The 
number  of  theaters  and  performances  of  the  drama  has  been 
greatly  increased  during  recent  years,  and  at  present  an  important 
movement,  headed  by  the  Chicago  Woman's  Club,  looking  toward 
the  establishment  of  a  theater  for  the  presentation  of  only  the 
higher  class  of  dramatic  entertainments,  is  well  started.  The 
woman's  clubs,  with  efforts  so  insistently  laudable  that  they  some- 
times become  a  little  ludicrous,  are  seriously  and  effectively 
promoting  culture. 

The  institution  which  is'  probably  doing  the  most  tO'  give  the 
community  a  fixed  ideal  of  the  higher,  intellectual  life,  is  the 
University  of  Chicago. 

"The  City  White  hath  fled  the  earth; 

But  where  her  azure  waters  He, 
A  nobler  city  hath  its  birth, 

The  City  Gray  that  ne'er  shall  die." 

The  very  presence,  within  the  "City  Black,"  of  the  university 
with  its  many  beautiful  and  substantial  buildings,  halls,  and 
laboratories  set  apart  for  the  search  after  and  dissemination  of 
truth  in  all  the  fields  of  knowledge,  and  the  reports  of  the  activi- 


74  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

ties  of  the  searchers  appearing  constantly  in  the  Chicago  daily 
papers,  however  inadequate  and  distorted  they  may  be  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  professors,  impress  the  community  with  the 
idea  of  universal  truth.  The  university  helps  toward  eradication 
of  the  provincial.  As  to  its  direct  influence  on  literary  production, 
Mr.  Walter  A.  Page,  of  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  New  York,  told 
the  writer  of  this  paper  that  no  university  in  America  is  doing  so 
much  to  encourage  creative  literary  activity  among  its  professors 
and  students  as  the  University  of  Chicago. 

After  all  is  said  that  may  be  said,  however,  about  the  concert 
of  notes  in  the  life  of  cosmopolitan  Chicago,  the  fact  remains  that 
the  one  which  sounds  loudest  and  clearest  is  that  of  business.  A 
typical  expression  of  this  was  given  in  the  following  sentences  by 
William  E.  Curtis,  in  the  Chicago  Record-Herald,  November  i8, 
1904: 

Chicago  has  pushed  ahead  more  rapidly  than  any  other  city  in  the  history 
of  mankind. 

She  is  the  greatest  of  railway  centers. 

Her  harbors  float  a  greater  tonnage  than  any  other  port  in  the  world. 

Chicago  is  the  greatest  cattle  market  in  the  world. 

Chicago   is  the  largest  grain  market. 

Chicago  is  the  biggest  market  for  agricultural  machinery. 

Chicago  does  the  largest  mail-order  business. 

The  largest  trading  in  ready-made  clothing. 

She  has  the  finest  wholesale  dry-goods  establishment  in  the  world. 

She  has  the  largest  and  finest  retail  department  store  in  the  world. 

She  is  the  largest  hardware  market  in  the  world. 

Chicago  is  the  biggest  furniture  market. 

Although  in  recent  years  much  attention  has  been  centered  on 
the  upbuilding  of  the  cultural,  artistic,  and  socializing  activities 
of  the  community,  there  has  been  no  movement  of  such  momen- 
tum as  that  of  the  Chicago  Commercial  Association,  which, 
reorganized  in  1904,  set  out  to  boom  Chicago  as  a  national  and 
world  mart.  Holding  that  the  city  is  "the  storm  center  of  price 
competition,"  delegations  of  business  men  from  the  mercantile 
and  manufacturing  concerns  in  the  association  go  out  to  various 
parts  of  the  country  on  genuine  campaigns  in  the  interest  of 
Chicago  as  the  market-metropolis. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  75 

The  romance  of  business  battles  has  stirred  many  writers  of 
fiction  resident  here  to  produce  novels  portraying  the  characters 
and  narrating  the  incidents  of  this  phase  of  the  community's  life. 
These  are  published  by  the  established  book-houses  of  New 
York  and  Boston.  No  magazine  for  literary  expression  of  this 
kind  of  life  has  been  undertaken  here.  The  Saturday  Evening 
Post,  of  Philadelphia,  the  general  magazine  which  devotes  more 
attention  than  any  other  tO'  stories  of  the  life  of  men  of  affairs, 
maintains  in  this  city  a  western  editorial  office,  with  Mr.  Forrest 
Crissey,  a  Chicago^  author  of  stories  and  verse,  in  charge,  chiefly 
for  the  securing  of  manuscripts  containing  literary  expression  of 
such  themes. 

Incidental  to  the  high  development  of  business  activity  in 
Chicago  has  been  a  great  increase  in  the  class  of  the  readers  of 
magazine  fiction  who  read  merely  for  rest.  Many  business  men 
and  thousands  of  their  clerks,  after  the  rush  and  noise  of  the 
business  day,  do  much  reading  for  recreation,  according  to  the 
testimony  given  for  this  paper  on  Chicago's  literary  interests, 
by  the  men  behind  the  news-stands  supplying  them  with  peri- 
odicals. As  a  rule,  they  are  not  critical  of  the  literary  quality 
of  the  magazines  read  in  this  spirit,  merely  demanding  stories 
diverting  on  account  of  incident. 

That  the  various  elements  set  forth  in  this  brief  outline  of  the 
character  of  the  Chicago  of  today,  and  particularly  the  character- 
istics from  the  ideals  of  business,  have  been,  and  are,  reflected  in 
the  origin,  development,  and  character  of  the  popular  magazines 
published  here  today  will  be  shown  by  the  facts  submitted  in  the 
detailed  accounts.  These  magazines  are  produced  as'  goods. 
They  are  put  on  the  market  to  yield  profits  on  investment.  In 
their  publication,  literary  productions  of  certain  grades  are  com- 
mercialized. Because  commercialized,  these  periodicals  will  be 
satirized — by  idealists.  But  the  history  of  the  scores  of  period- 
icals attempted  at  Chicago  in  preceding  decades  has  shown  that 
the  bulk  have  been  nothing  more  than  ephemeral  efforts,  because 
based  on  the  floating  foundation  of  literary  sentiment — western 
literary  sentiment.  In  this  general  experience  the  commercializa- 
tion of  popular  literary  magazines  finds  justification.  The  demand 


76  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

for  them  reveals  something  which  economists  describe  as  an  econ- 
omic want.  Only  when  produced  on  a  business  basis  is  the  demand 
economically  supplied.  The  professors  in  the  English  department 
of  the  Central  Division  of  the  Modern  Language  Association,  at 
a  conference  in  this  city,  in  January,  1903,  advocated  the  establish- 
ment of  a  western  literary  magazine  tO'  preserve  the  smaller 
literary  productions  of  men  who  really  write  literature  according 
to  the  academic  standards  of  criticis^m.  They  declared  that  its 
publication  could  be  provided  for  in  no  other  way  than  by  endow- 
ment. Such  an  endowed  magazine  has  not  been  established  in 
Chicago.  For  the  general  dissemination  of  any  kind  of  literary- 
periodical,  endowment  is  not  practical,  certainly  not  economical. 
To  exist  and  grow,  a  literary  magazine  must  be  run — to  use  a 
business  colloquialism — as  a  "business  proposition."  "But  when 
the  coimting-room  is  put  first,  taste  is  perverted,"  say  objectors  to 
this  statement.  The  answer  is  that  while  the  publisher  of 
periodical  and  book  fiction  can  do  something  in  elevating  reading 
taste,  it  is  but  little.  The  point  of  attack  for  that  great  work  is  not 
the  publisher's  office,  but  the  school  and  the  home,  where  the  taste 
of  those  making  the  demand  for  novels  and  literary  magazines  is 
acquired  and  definitely  cultivated. 

The  World  To-Day,  a  magazine  in  which  a  cosmorama  of 
knowledge  about  world-events  is  made  popular  by  means  of  an 
aesthetic  gloss  from  the  essay  style  of  writing  and  from  illustra- 
tions, mirrors  not  only  in  its  present  character,  but  also  in  the 
history  of  its  development  of  character,  more  of  the  influences  in 
the  internal  cosmopolitanism  of  Chicago  than  does  any  other 
periodical.  This  popular  monthly  of  the  literary  journalistic 
order  had  its  roots  in  a  heavy,  periodic  encyclopedia  and  a 
religious  weekly.  The  magazine  is  now  in  its  sixth  year,  though 
during  the  first  year  of  its  publication  it  bore  another  name  and 
was  not  of  its  present  artistic  character. 

It  was  at  first  devoted  to  knowledge,  and  to  knowledge  unal- 
loyed. The  Current  Encyclopedia  was  its  name  at  the  beginning. 
The  initial  number  appeared  July  15,  1901.  The  periodical  was 
founded  by  Mr.  William  E.  Ernst,  who  holds  the  office  of  vice- 
president  and  publisher  in  the  World  To-Day  Company.    He  had 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  77 

been  in  charge  of  the  subscription  book  department  of  the  V\'"erner 
Company,  then  of  Chicago,  now  of  Akron,  Ohio^ — a  firm  making 
large  sales  of  standard  encyclopedias.  Mr.  Ernst  obsen^ed  that 
the  annual  handbooks  brought  out  tO'  supplement  the  encyclopedia 
volumes  were  usually  late.  He  therefore  was  impressed  with  the 
idea  of  publishing  a  "monthly  record  of  human  progress,  con- 
taining the  latest  information  on  history,  science,  philosophy, 
literature,  legislation,  politics,  industry,  religion,  education,  art, 
etc.,"  to  quote  the  subline  to  the  title  of  the  Current  Encyclopedia. 

Two  similar  periodicals,  devoted  to  the  knowledge-interests, 
had  previously  been  published  in  Chicago.  One  was  Self  Culture, 
first  brought  out  by  the  Werner  Company  in  April,  1895.  A  file  in 
the  Newberry  Library  shows  that  this  heavy  magazine  was  dis- 
tributed among  the  members  of  the  "Home  University  League" — 
that  is,  among  readers  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica.  By  1900, 
three  years  after  the  Werner  Company  had  moved  tO'  Akron,  the 
name  of  the  magazine  was  changed  to  Modern  Culture,  and  its 
ponderous  appeal  to  the  serious  interest  in  knowledge  gave  place 
to  the  popularized  form  of  magazine  presentation.  The  other 
was  Progress,  also  begun  in  1895.  This  was  a  "home  study" 
magazine,  each  monthly  number  containing  "lessons."  It  was 
issued  by  the  "University  Association"  in  the  interests  of  uni- 
versity extension  and  World's  Congress  extension.  Right  Rev. 
Samuel  Fallows,  D.D.,  bishop  of  the  Reformed  Episcopal  church 
in  the  West  and  Northv/est,  chairman  of  the  general  education 
committee  of  the  World's  Congress  Auxiliary,  and  former  state 
superintendent  of  public  instruction  in  Wisconsin,  was  the 
chancellor  of  the  association  and  the  leading  editor  on  the  periodi- 
cal's staff  of  "instructors."  When  the  Current  Encyclopedia  was 
started.  Progress  was  merged  with  it,  and  Bishop  Fallows  is  still 
one  of  the  directors  of  the  World  To-Day  Company. 

For  the  Current  Encyclopedia  Mr.  Ernst  estimated  that  from 
students,  teachers,  public  speakers,  newspaper  editors,  and 
serious-minded  people  generally  there  should  be  a  demand  requir- 
ing 100,000  copies  each  month.  He  organized  a  "Modern  Re- 
search Society,"  engaged  Edmund  Buckley,  Ph.D.,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  as  editor,  and  secured  the  services  of  a  staff 


78  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

of  thirty-nine  assistant  editors,  each  in  charge  of  editing  the 
material  on  a  subject  in  which  he  was  a  speciaHst.  No  advertising 
was  sohcited  and  not  any  pubHshed.  That  is,  there  was  no  effort 
to  induce  readers  to  make  indirect  payment  toward  the  cost  of 
satsifying  their  desire  for  knowledge.  A  price  of  50  cents  a  copy 
and  $5  a  year,  was  charged  for  the  Current  Encyclopedia.  It  was 
sold  only  by  subscription.  But  the  expected  circulation  was  not 
secured.  The  maximum  reached  was  8,000.  This  was  not 
sufficient  to  make  the  magazine  self-supporting. 

The  experimenting  to  maintain  this  kind  of  periodical  was 
continued  for  a  year.  Then  what  may  be  called  the  sesthetizing 
of  the  magazine  was  begun.  "We  saw  there  was  a  demand  for 
the  same  material  in  a  lighter  vein  than  had  marked  the  Cur- 
rent Encyclopedia,"  says  Mr.  Ernst.  The  very  name  of  the  maga- 
zine was  too  heavy.  It  was  a  title  suggesting  a  ponderous  tone 
and  work  in  reading.  The  publisher  found  that  the  number  of 
general  readers  really  willing  to  labor  in  magazine  perusal  was 
most  limited.  It  was  decided  first  to  alter  the  name  of  the  maga- 
zine. At  this  time  Mr.  Albert  G.  Beaunisne,  assistant  to  the 
publisher  of  the  Chicago  Daily  News,  became  financially  inter- 
ested in  Mr.  Ernst's  magazine  venture.  Through  his  influence 
negotiations  over  an  offer  of  the  editorship  of  the  magazine  were 
begun  with  Mr.  Trumbull  White,  a  seasoned  Chicago  newspaper 
man  and  foreign  correspondent,  who,  however,  became  the  editor 
to  found  the  Red  Book,  and  is  now  editor  of  Appleton's  Book- 
lover's  Magazine  at  New  York.  The  name  "Current  Events" 
was  under  consideration.  Mr.  White  said  that  was  too  common- 
place. He  proposed  the  "World  of  Today."  This  title,  minus 
the  preposition,  w^as  adopted. 

At  this  point  Mr.  Ernst  and  Mr.  Beaunisne  went  to  Mr.  E.  A. 
Shepler,  manager  of  the  Western  News  Co..  a  constituent  part 
of  the  American  News  Co.,  the  periodical-distributing  agency 
for  the  entire  country.  They  asked  him  if  matter-of-fact  material 
written  in  an  entertaining  manner,  profusely  illustrated  with  half- 
tones, appearing  in  a  magazine  with  a  catchy  cover  design,  would 
sell  on  the  news-stands  if  published  in  Chicago.  Mr.  Shepler 
said  to  them : 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  79 

You  can  succeed  if  you  give  the  people  their  money's  worth.  There  never 
has  been  a  magazine  published  in  Chicago  that  deserved  to  succeed  in  compe- 
tition with  those  pubHshed  in  New  York.  Sentiment  as  to  place  of  publication 
does  not  go.    If  you  make  the  magazine  worth  its  price,  it  will  sell. 

Mr.  Ernst  and  his  associates  set  about  attempting  to  give  the 
public  its  "money's  worth"  at  twenty-five  cents  a  copy. 

The  first  number  of  the  periodical  under  its  present  name, 
being  the  first  of  its  second  year,  appeared  on  the  news-stands  in 
July,  1902.  A  total  of  only  5,000  copies  was  placed  on  distri- 
bution. A  larger  issue  was  put  on  sale  in  August;  and  in  Sep- 
tember, 8,000  copies  were  given  to  the  news  company.  The 
annual  subscribers  numbered  7,000.  Up  to  this  time 
no  advertisements  had  been  solicited.  Since,  however, 
the  sales  had  been  encouraging,  the  publisher  believed  he  had  the 
nucleus  of  a  circulation  that  would  appeal  to  advertisers.  He 
began  seeking  advertising  contracts  But  those  advertisers  who 
supply  the  magazine  publishers  with  the  bulk  of  their  revenues 
did  not  show  much  interest  in  a  circulation  of  only  15,000. 
Toward  August  of  the  next  year,  1903,  it  became  evident  that 
steps  to  enlarge  the  number  of  readers  were  imperative.  In  this 
direction  new  editorial  strength  and  the  influence  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  were  sought. 

During  the  late  spring  and  summer  of  1903  a  weekly  news- 
paper, with  magazine  cover,  called  Christendom,  and  bearing  the 
imprint  "Chicago,"  was  to  be  found  on  the  news-stands — that  is, 
by  one  looking  carefully.  No.  i  of  this  journal  came  out  April  18. 
Christendom  was  an  incident  in  the  religious-education  move- 
ment. A  gentleman  who  was  intimately  connected  with  the  publi- 
cation says :  "Christendom  originated  in  the  fertile  brain  of  the 
late  Dr.  William  R.  Harper,  president  of  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago." Dr.  Harper,  as  founder  of  the  Religious  Education  Asso- 
ciation of  the  United  States,  and  a  leader  in  the  movement  for 
keeping  religion  constantly  emphasized  as  one  of  the  most  funda- 
mental forces  in  the  life  of  a  nation  admittedly  materialistic  in  its 
attitudes,  desired  to  have  information  concerning  current  events 
popularly  presented  to  magazine-readers  with  attention  to  this 
point  of  view.     To  judge  from  the  announcements  concerning 


8o  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

Christendom,  the  object  of  its  sponsors  was  the  estabhshment  of 
an  Outlook  for  the  West — a  weekly  journal  along  the  lines  of 
the  one  edited  by  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  in  New  York. 

Shailer  Mathews,  D.D.,  professor  of  New  Testament  history 
and  interpretation,  and  one  of  the  deans  of  the  Divinity  School 
of  the  University  of  Chicago,  was  the  editor  of  Christendom.  He 
was  nominated  for  this  editorial  office  by  Dr.  Harper  partly 
because  he  had  been  successful  in  the  active  editorial  direction  of 
the  Biblical  World.  Skilled  as  a  popularizer  and  scholarly  as  a 
research  worker,  not  only  in  theological,  but  also  in  historical  and 
sociological  fields,  Dr.  Mathews  is  regarded  as  being  unusually 
well  qualified  to  be  the  editor  of  a  magazine  portraying  current 
life  in  its  larger  relations  and  published  for  general  distribution. 
Christendom  was  ably  edited.  Not  many  numbers  had  been  put 
on  sale,  however,  before  it  became  apparent  that  the  periodical 
was  not  going  to  be  self-supporting.  Christendom  was  discon- 
tinued August  23,  1903.  From  it  the  World  To-Day  acquired 
the  new  editorial  strength  which  was  being  looked  for  eagerly  by 
the  publishers  at  that  time.  With  the  September,  1903,  number 
Dr.  Mathews  became  editor  of  the  World  To-Day,  and  Dr.  Har- 
per chairman  of  the  directorate's  editorial  committee.  All  that 
was  left  of  Christendom  was  absorbed  by  the  World  To-Day, 
which  derived  from  it,  besides  editorial  power,  additional  busi- 
ness strength.  The  World  To-Day  Company  was'  reorganized, 
and  the  principal  owners  of  stock  in  Christendom  became  officers 
and  directors  of  the  reorganized  company.  Prominent  Chicago 
business  and  professional  men,  some  also  patrons  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  were  among  them.  Mr.  Francis  W.  Parker, 
a  reform  leader  in  active  politics  and  a  university  trustee,  became 
chairman  of  the  finance  committee.  Mr.  Beaunisne,  chairman  of 
the  director's  committee  on  publication  for  Christendom,  who  had 
previously  become  interested  in  the  World  To-Day,  became  treas- 
urer of  the  publishing  corporation. 

That  the  World  To-Day  is  regarded  as'  a  business  invest- 
ment is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  among  its  directors  are  Mr, 
John  R.  Thompson,  the  proprietor  of  a  system  of  restaurants ;  Mr. 
Charles  A.  Marsh,  the  president  of  a  lumber  company;  Mr.  O. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  8l 

F.  Kropf,  the  secretary  of  a  company  manufacturing  plumbers' 
supplies ;  and  Mr.  F.  J.  Llewellyn,  a  contracting  manager.  In  the 
list  of  stockholders  is  Mr.  Frank  G.  Logan,  a  former  member  of 
the  Board  of  Trade.  A  majority  of  the  owners  of  stock  in  the 
magazine  company  are  actively  engaged  in  local  commercial  enter- 
prises. They  have  invested  in  the  stock  expecting  returns  at  the 
normal  rate  of  interest  on  capital.  It  is  possible  that  more  is 
looked  for,  since  the  amount  of  stock  paid  up,  the  preferred,  is 
$100,000,  while  the  total  capital  stock  of  the  company  is  put  at 
$430,000.  It  would,  however,  be  unfair  to  assert  that  business 
gain  has  been  the  prime  motive  of  investors  in  the  World  To-Day 
venture.  The  spirit  of  local  pride,  and  the  ambition  of  fostering 
agencies  for  intellectual  and  artistic  advancement  in  a  city  that 
may  be  said  tO'  be  not  so  much  backward  in  culture  as  forward  in 
business,  have  been  important  moving  forces.  All  of  the  stock- 
holders are  residents  of  Chicago.  W\  of  them  have  expressed 
an  earnest  desire  for  the  permanent  establishment  of  a  dignified 
literary  magazine  bearing  the  imprint  of  Chicago. 

The  friendly  influence  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  in  addi- 
tion to  these  permanent  assets  of  editorial  and  business  power, 
was  secured  by  the  World  To-Day  with  the  taking  over  of  the 
remnants  of  Christendom.  It  is  difiicult  for  one  in  any  way  con- 
nected with  the  university  tO'  estimate  the  influence  exerted  by 
the  institution  on  the  higher-life  interests  of  the  community.  Mr. 
William  Morton  Payne,  of  the  Dial,  whoi  is  a  Chicago'  literary 
critic  in  no  way  connected  with  the  university,  writing  on 
"The  Intellectual  Life  of  Chicago"  for  the  World  To-Day  of  July, 
1904,  laid  emphasis  on  "the  predominant  influence  of  a  single 
institution — the  University  of  Chicago^ — upon  our  intellectual 
development."  Mr.  Payne  brought  out  this  point,  showing 
progress  made  in  the  city  since  the  time  he  had  been  commissioned 
to  write  an  article  on  "Literary  Chicago"  for  the  Neiv  England 
Magazine,  in  1893,  when  the  university  was  in  its  first  academic 
year,  and  its  influence  only  a  promise.  That  the  backing  of  the 
executive  officers,  the  large  faculty,  and  the  patrons  of  the  univer- 
sity has  been  an  important  factor  in  the  growth  of  the  World  To- 
Day,  published  down-town  and  not  in  any  way  directly  connected 


82  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

with  the  university,  is  quite  evident.  Dr.  Mathews  says  that  the 
advantage  which  the  magazine  has  in  his  own  connection  with  the 
university  lies  in  its  editor's  contact  with  the  men  on  the  faculties 
as  individuals,  and  his  nearness  to  them  as  a  source  of  supply  for 
valuable  articles.  Mr.  Ernst,  the  publisher,  speaking  from  the 
business  man's  point  of  view,  says,  however,  that  because  the 
public  is  aware  of  the  magazine's  support  by  the  university  men, 
it  has  gained  in  standing  with  the  public. 

With  the  alignment  of  these  editorial  and  business  forces,  in 
September,  1903  the  World  To-Day  took  on  its  present  character 
of  literary  dress  and  pictorial  attraction  for  the  interest  in  the 
aesthetic,  and  the  publishing  company  set  about  making  it,  not 
only  self-supporting,  but  also  profit-bearing.  In  this,  the  adjust- 
ing of  business  and  literary  interests  is  interesting,  and  illustrative 
of  general  facts  in  magazine  publishing,  not  only  at  Chicago,  but 
in  the  publishing  field  at  large.  To  understand  a  correlating  of 
such  interests  it  is  necessary  to  trace  the  lines  in  a  web  of  economic 
wants  in  which  the  desires  for  instruction  and  entertainment 
through  the  medium  of  literary  form  and  pictures  are  woven. 

Advertising  is  the  most  important  thread.  The  securing  of 
contracts  for  publishing  advertising  became  the  main  objective 
even  of  those  directly  interested  in  the  World  To-Day  as  a 
cultural  agency.  By  far  the  largest  part  of  the  receipts  of  nearly 
every  magazine  comes  from  the  advertising  pages,  as  every  casual 
magazine-reader  appreciates.  The  receipts  from  the  purchasers  of 
the  magazine  at  the  news-stands,  and  from,  the  subscribers  by  the 
year,  cover  only  a  small  percentage  of  the  total  expenses  of  pro- 
duction. Of  course,  the  advertisers  put  the  expense  of  advertis- 
ing into  the  prices  of  articles  advertised.  So'  it  comes  about  that 
the  people  who  buy  the  goods  advertised  in  the  magazines  pay, 
when  they  purchase  those  goods,  a  literary  toll.  The  advertisers 
are  the  toll-gate  men,  and  through  them  indirectly  the  publishers 
collect  fares  for  passage  in  whatever  kind  of  literary  omnibus 
they  are  running. 

Now  it  happens  that  the  kind  of  goods'  most  advertised,  those 
pushed  intO'  attention  by  means  of  brands  and  trade-marks,  are 
certain  staples  of  home  consumption,  such  as  soaps  and  breakfast 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  83 

foods.  Hence  the  people  who'  must  be  reached  by  a  magazine 
whose  publishers  wish  tO'  make  it  a  medium  for  a  large  volume  of 
this  advertising  are  the  home-maintainers.  The  publisher  of  the 
World  To-Day,  on  the  basis  of  experience  in  the  development  of 
this  magazine,  summed  the  situation  up  this  way: 

Advertising  is  the  backbone  of  a  magazine's  success.  Middle-class  people 
with  homes  are  the  ones  who  buy  the  goods  on  which  most  money  is 
spent  for  advertising.  But  to  get  this  advertising  for  your  magazine  you 
first  must  have  in  its  literary  pages  "the  stufiF"  that  will  appeal  to  the  people 
interested  in  those  "ads." 

The  climax  of  this  statement  indicates  the  fact  that  the  taste 
of  that  large  body  of  citizens  called  the  middle  class  has 
definitely  determined  in  large  part  the  editorial,  literary,  and 
artistic  character  of  the  World  To-Day.  The  demand  which  its 
editor  has  avowedly  aimed  to  supply  is  what  he  frankly  describes 
as  the  bourgoisie  interests.  The  variations  in  taste  which  have 
been  kept  in  mind  are  those  of  the  people  whom  Charles  Austin 
Bates,  a  New  York  advertising  agency  proprietor,  in  his  book, 
The  Art  and  Literature  of  Business  (New  York,  1902),  treats  of 
under  the  head  "The  Average  American."  He  says  (Vol.  I,  p. 
284): 

It  is  the  great  middle  class  that  reads  newspapers,  magazines,  and  other 
periodicals,  and  these  are  the  people  that  the  advertiser  wishes  to  reach. 
Taking  them  at  random,  one  thousand  of  them  is  just  about  as  valuable  as 
another  thousand. 

But  it  is  the  Middie  West  average  American,  considered  by  Dr. 
Mathews  to  be  the  most  typically  American,  whose  tastes  and 
interests  have  been  kept  in  mind  in  the  making  of  the  World  To- 
Day.  A  compact  western  circulation  has  been  worked  for  by  the 
publisher  of  the  magazine,  and  80  per  cent,  of  the  World  To-Day 
readers  are  in  homes  west  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  60  per 
cent,  being  in  the  North  Central  States.  The  editor  has  quite 
naturally  kept  his  finger  on  the  pulse  of  the  people  in  the  region  of 
which  Chicago'  is  the  metropolis,  and  the  publisher  has  expected 
the  largest  constituency  there  for  the  same  reason.  Incidentally, 
the  advertisers  who  carry  on  big  publicity  campaigns  have  taken  to 
conducting  those  campaigns  by  states,  and  Mr.  Ernst  has  aimed  to 


84  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

meet  this  condition  by  building  up  a  concentrated  Middle  West 
constituency.  Further,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  Dr.  Mathews 
and  several  members  of  the  World  To-Day  Company  are  teachers', 
and  that,  despite  the  emphasis  laid  on  making  the  magazine  a 
success  commercially,  one  of  their  aims  has  been  to  make  it  a 
means  of  leading  public  opinion.  Therefore,  since  those  asserting 
leadership  must  not  get  too  far  away  from  their  publics,  attention 
to  the  taste  and  opinion  of  the  constituency  has  been  exercised 
consciously  and  analytically.  For  these  various  reasons  the  taste 
and  temper  of  Chicago  and  the  Middle  West  have  influenced  Dr. 
Mathews  directly  as  he  determined  the  editorial  content  and 
literary  form  policies  in  the  formation  of  the  character  of  the 
World  To-Day. 

The  desire  to  be  instructed,  and  to  be  entertained  while  receiv- 
ing instruction,  felt  generally  by  the  average  American,  is 
regarded  by  the  editor  and  publisher  of  the  World  To-Day  as 
especially  strong  in  the  middle-class  people  with  homes  who  make 
up  the  largest  part  of  the  population  of  the  Middle  West.  Mr, 
Ernst,  influenced  by  his  experience  with  the  Current  Encyclopedia, 
lays  emphasis  on  the  desire  for  entertainment  from  literary  forms 
and  pictures.  Dr.  Mathews  says  his  aim  is  equally  toi  instruct  and 
to  entertain.  The  interest  of  intelligent  home-maintainers  in  the 
literary  presentation  of  serious  subject-matter  in  form  other  than 
that  of  the  story  is  what,  in  his  opinion,  makes  a  demand  for  such 
a  periodical  as  the  one  he  edits.  His  effort  is  "to  put  facts  so  as 
to  be  read."  In  an  investigation  of  the  extent  of  the  market  for 
books  of  fiction  published  in  Chicago,  pursued  in  this  study,  it  was 
learned  that  two-thirds  of  the  reading  of  the  country  is  done  by 
the  one-half  of  the  population  residing  east  of  Ohio.  Mr.  Ernst 
is  authority  for  the  statement  that  this  holds  true  for  the  maga- 
zine reading  of  the  country.  But  of  the  reading  in  the  West  a 
larger  proportionate  share  is  of  serious  subject-matter.  Mr.  Ernst 
presents  some  concrete  facts  on  the  circulation  of  other  magazines 
to  show  that  the  people  outside  of  that  section  known  as  the  East 
do  relatively  more  reading  of  serious  writing  than  they  do  of 
fiction  in  periodicals.  He  says  that  the  Reviezv  of  Reviews,  for 
example,  has  a  larger  percentage  of  its  circulation  in  the  West 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  85 

than  any  story  magazine  has.  Dr.  Mathews,  in  a  signed  article 
on  "Culture  in  the  West,"  appearing  in  a  "New  West"  number 
of  his  magazine,  February,  1905,  says  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
that,  although  it  "appeals  to  the  tradition  of  culture  without 
relying  upon  tlie  seductions  of  illustrations  or  sensational  exposes, 
yet  finds  more  than  half  its  circulation  west  of  Cleveland."  He 
further  says:  "The  view  which  the  West  takes  of  life,  while  not 
pessimistic,  is  serious;"  and  in  the  editorial  leader  for  the  same 
number,  quoted  in  part  for  the  headpiece  of  this  paper,  he  further 
emphasizes  this  point.  The  interest  of  home  people  in  every 
phase  of  progress  is  rated  as  fundamental  in  determining  western 
taste,  but  the  desire  for  virile  expression  and  novelty  modifies  this 
in  such  a  way  that  the  taste  in  periodicals  is  for  a  magazine 
which  is  entertaining. 

The  "literary-information"  class  of  magazines  is  the  one  to 
which  the  World  To-Day  belongs,  it  is  not  a  literary  magazine, 
in  the  literary  critic's  use  of  the  adjective  "literary,"  since  in  its 
contents  there  is  to  be  found  no  exclusively  imaginative  writing. 
But  since  its  pages  show  great  dependence  on  a  form  of  writing 
designed  to  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  interest,  and  since  pictures:  are 
a  leading  factor  in  its  entertaining  of  the  public,  the  World 
To-Day  merits  minute  attention  for  the  purposes  of  looking  into 
the  orders  of  periodicals  manifesting  the  literary  phase  of  the 
general  aesthetic  interest  at  Chicago. 

The  table  of  contents  for  any  issue  of  the  World  To-Day 
shows  that  they  have  been  selected  with  a  plan  for  consistent  unity. 
The  main  motive  throughout  is  the  knowledge-interest.  The 
first  two  pages  are  filled  with  an  editorial  printed  in  large  type. 
This  is  an  editorial  written  with  "the  psychological  moment"  in 
view,  an  expression  designed  to  give  new  mental  pictures  concern- 
ing the  question  of  the  month  dominating  the  minds  of  typical 
"average  Americans."  The  next  fifteen  pages  are  devoted  to  a 
review  of  the  "Events  of  the  Month."  under  four  subheads : 
"World  Politics,"  "The  Nation,"  "Art  and  Letters,"  and  "The 
Religious  World."  A  dozen  "contributed  articles"  on  a  variety 
of  subjects,  written  by  men  of  more  or  less  authority,  then  come 
to  complete  the  main  part  of  the  magazine.     They  are  followed 


86  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

by  short,  signed  articles  in  a  department  called  "The  Making  of 
Tomorrow"  which  has  a  subline  saying,  "How  the  world  of  today 
is  preparing  for  tlie  world  of  tomorrow."  Sections  designated 
"Books  and  Reading"  and  "Calendar  of  the  Month,"  and  finally 
"The  Encyclopedic  Index,"  a  survival  of  the  magazine  in  its 
original  form,  complete  the  contents. 

"National  journalism"  is  the  characterization  of  this  array 
of  material  given  by  the  editor,  who  is  endeavoring  each  month 
to  cover  the  entire  field,  in  balance.  Some  down-town  friends  of 
the  World  To-Day,  among  them  a  literary  critic,  offer  the  objec- 
tion that  the  magazine  is  too  emphatic  in  its  religious  tone.  On 
the  other  hand,  some  of  the  editor's  theological  friends  are  inclined 
to  think  it  is  too  worldly.  Dr.  Mathews  defends  his  policy,  con- 
tending that  no  more  attention  is  given  to  the  record  of  religious 
movements  than  to  others,  and  that  the  facts  show  religion  to  be 
one  of  the  large  forces  in  the  life  of  tlie  nation.  Looking  at  the 
monthlies  with  which  the  World  To-Day  is  competing,  it  appears 
to  be  true  tliat  the  World  To-Day  is  broader  in  scope.  The 
Reviciv  of  Reviews  is  predommantly  a  political  and  economic 
record.  The  World's  Work  makes  special  features  of  various 
topics,  seeming  to  show  little  effort  at  a  balanced  view  of  the 
world-field.  McC hire's  Magazine  has  recently  specialized  in  mu- 
nicipal, political,  and  economic  exposes.  The  Outlook,  published 
as  a  weekly  newspaper,  with  a  monthly  magazine  number,  carries 
out  effectively  the  policy  adopted  by  the  World  To-Day,  and  is 
even  more  insistent  on  attention  to  religious  activity.  Thus  in  its 
range  of  material,  the  appeal  of  the  World  To-Day  reflects  the 
character  of  Chicago,  and  is  designed  for  the  tastes  of  the  people 
of  "the  new  West"  whom  Dr.  Mathews  regards  as  particularly 
susceptible  to  the  cosmopolitanism  which  he  regards  as  typically 
American. 

It  is'  not  the  world-wide  range  of  subject-matter  that  makes 
the  World  To-Day  of  interest  from  the  point  of  view  of  aesthetics. 
What  does  is  the  style  of  writing  in  which  this  matter 
is  presented.  The  encyclopedic  form  of  statement  is  shunned. 
The  ponderous  circumlocution  known  as  academic  writing  is 
studiously  avoided.     The  essay  style,  brightened  by  a  play  of 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  87 

imagination  over  matters  of  fact,  pointed  with  epigrams,  is  what 
the  editor  wants,  so  that  every  paragraph  shall  be  entertaining. 
Literary  form  of  this  kind  is  relied  upon  as  a  means  of  making 
the  magazine  popular.  The  composition  of  the  editorial  leaders, 
by  Dr.  Mathews  himself,  has  been  of  this  style,  appealing  to  the 
general  aesthetic  interest,  and  the  contributed  articles  have  been 
written  in  this  manner. 

After  all  is  said  about  the  literary  dress  of  the  magazine,  it  is, 
however,  through  another  medium  that  the  World  To-Day  makes 
its  telling  appeal.  The  men  behind  news-stands,  when  asked  what 
the  people  desire  most,  said :  ''They  want  to  read  pictures." 
The  eye  of  a  magazine-purchaser  standing  before  a  news-stand 
display  of  periodicals  is  caught  by  the  original  drawings  of  the 
World  To-Day  cover  designs.  For  several  issues  after  it  became 
the  World  To-Day,  the  magazine  lacked  such  a  means  of  adver- 
tising itself.  For  some  months  also,  the  same  design,  containing 
only  a  small  hemisphere  for  a  decorative  feature,  was  used, 
although  this  cover  scheme  was  made  to  stand  out  by  the  use 
of  different  colors  from  month  to  month.  As  a  permanent  policy, 
the  plan  of  printing  a  new  cover,  done  in  two  or  three  colors,  each 
month  was  adopted.  The  cover  gives  a  promise  of  the  illustra- 
tions on  the  reading-pages.  Pictures  fill  nearly  half  of  them. 
There  is  scarcely  a  page  without  some  kind  of  a  picture,  quarter- 
page,  half-page,  or  full-page  in  size.  Besides  portraits  of  indi- 
viduals whose  personalities  are  factors  in  the  life  of  the  world, 
there  are  scenes  showing  activities  in  fields  and  parks,  on  rivers 
and  seas,  in  factories  and  legislative  halls,  and  on  the  stages  of 
theaters,  as  well  as  reproductions  of  masterly  paintings.  Excepting 
the  reproductions  of  etched  newspaper  cartoons  run  in  the  review 
section,  all  the  illustrations  are  half-tones,  exceedingly  well  done. 
Fancy  borders  and  backgrounds,  in  pale  blue  and  cream-yellow 
tints,  are  used  to  give  the  larger  half-tones  added  aesthetic  values. 
The  illustrations  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Exposition  number, 
September,  1904,  made  it,  without  doubt,  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful magazines  ever  published.  Summing  up,  it  may  be  said  that 
the  World  To-Day  is  like  a  wholesome  cake  of  many  layers, 
coated  with  frosting  and  decorated  with  designs  in  sugar  of 
various  colors. 


o»  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

For  a  year  after  the  name  of  the  magazine  became  the  World 
To-Day,  and  for  nearly  another  year  after  the  formation  of  its 
character  in  the  present  editor's  hands,  the  price  of  25  cents  a 
copy  and  $3  per  annum  was  maintained.  This  is  the  regular 
charge  for  the  review  magazines.  But  experience  in  marketing 
the  World  To-Day  at  this  figure  showed  that  the  constituency  of 
average  Americans  interested  in  its  contents,  and  desired  so  as  to 
command  the  largest  volume  of  advertising,  thought  it  too  high. 
In  July,  1904,  the  price  was  reduced  to  10  cents  a  copy  and  $1  a 
year.  The  publisher  advertised  the  periodical  as  the  "only  maga- 
zine of  its  class  for  ten  cents."  As  this  is  the  price  of  popular  fic- 
tion magazines',  the  new  charge  made  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  the 
World  To-Day.  Immediately  sales  doubled.  Mr.  Ernst  esti- 
mated that  in  the  western  territory  there  were  300,000  people 
interested  in  such  a  magazine  as  his  and  able  to  afford  it  at  this 
price.  The  circulation  mounted  to  60,000,  then  tO'  80,000  by  Feb- 
ruary, 1905,  and  has  reached  85,729,  the  steady  increase  having 
gained  such  momentum  that  in  March,  1906,  the  price  was  raised 
to  15  cents  a  copy  and  $1.50  for  twelve  numbers. 

A  magazine  with  contents  so  presented  as  to  interest  home- 
maintaining  people  having  been  developed,  and  circulation  among 
them  having  been  secured,  and  especially  a  circulation  geog- 
raphically compact,  the  desired  and  needed  advertising  contracts 
have  been  forthcoming  for  the  World  To-Day.  In  a  tabulation  of 
paid  advertising  in  the  "leading  monthlies"  of  the  country, 
appearing  in  Printer's  Ink,  November  9,  1904,  the  World  To-Day 
ranked  fourteenth.  At  that  time,  thirteen  months  after  it  had 
taken  on  its  present  character,  the  magazine  had  83  pages  and 
19,256  agate  lines  of  advertising.  It  has  since  advanced  in  rank 
to  eleventh.    Early  in  1905  the  magazine  began  to  show  a  profit. 

Judging  the  success  of  a  contemporary  periodical  is  handi- 
capped by  the  natural  enthusiasm  felt  for  their  literary  children 
by  editors  and  publishers,  the  chief  sources  of  information. 
Moreover,  unromantic  as  it  may  seem,  the  test  of  success  for 
even  a  dignified  journal,  of  genuine  editorial,  literary,  and  artistic 
quality,  is  that  of  the  "going  concern."  However  good  a 
periodical  may  be,  it  is  not  a  success  if  continuance  is  not  assured. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  89 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  World  To-Day  is  a  success,  and  to  predict 
its  permanence.  The  manager  of  the  Western  News  Co., 
who  has  seen  many  ephemeral  Chicago  magazines  dry  up  by  the 
wayside,  the  Hterary  critics  and  men  in  the  pubhshing  business 
at  Chicago,  and  the  western  representatives  of  the  older  New 
York  magazines  have  agreed  in  tliis  statement  and  prediction. 
The  chief  reason  for  such  success  and  promise  is  that  the  editor 
has  proved  skilful  in  having  topics  of  world-wide  information  so 
clothed  in  a  literary  dress,  with  pictorial  trimmings,  as  tO'  make 
it  appeal  convincingly  tO'  the  general  aesthetic  interest  of  middle- 
class  people  in  the  Middle  West,  the  territory  contiguous  to  the 
inwardly  cosmopolitan  metropolis  in  which  it  is  published. 

The  Red  Book,  Chicago's  first  conspicuous  success  at  publish- 
ing a  fiction  magazine  of  the  contemporary  popular  type,  came 
into  being  because  several  gentlemen  who^  are  Jews,  the  members 
of  a  prominent  firm  of  merchants  with  headquarters  at  the  center 
of  the  principal  shopping  street,  thought  they  might  make  some 
money  by  satisfying  the  demand  for  stories.  Stumer,  Rosenthal 
&  Eckstein  is  the  firm  name  of  these  business  men,  Messrs.  Louis 
M.  Stumer,  Abraham  R.  Stumer,  Benjamin  J.  Rosenthal,  and 
Louis  Eckstein.  They  own  and  operate  among  other  business 
enterprises,  two  retail  millinery  stores — "The  Emporium"  and 
the  "Millinery  World,"  a  large  "cut  rate"  drug-store — the 
"Public  Drug  Co.,"  two  restaurants  and  an  office  building,  in 
which  the  editorial  and  publishing  offices  of  the  Red  Book  are 
located. 

Some  pointers  about  publishing  and  advertising,  and  possible 
profits  therefrom,  had  been  picked  up  by  individual  members  of 
this  firm  several  years  ago.  Before  joining  this  business  partner- 
ship. Mr.  Eckstein  had  been  general  passenger  agent  of  the  Wis- 
consin Central  Railway,  and  in  working  up  to  that  position  had 
learned  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  periodical  advertising.  Mr.  Rosen- 
thal, as  a  prominent  member  of  the  Chicago  Board  of  Education, 
the  Public  Library  Board,  and  the  Chicago  Centennial  Celebra- 
tion committee,  had  become  acquainted  with  Mr.  D wight  Allyn, 
a  "star  newspaper-man,"  who  in  June,  1900,  started  the  10 
Story  Book.     This  is  a  small-sized  Chicago  monthly  containing 


90  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

"snappy"  short  stories,  and  is  prosperous  today.  In  its  early 
stages  Mr.  Allyn,  finding  himself  in  need  of  funds  to  keep  the 
venture  alive,  went  to^  Mr.  Rosenthal.  He  and  some  other 
members  of  his  firm  bought  stock  in  Mr.  Allyn's  company — under 
contract,  however,  to  sell  it  back  to  him  prior  to  1903.  This 
they  did,  Mr,  Allyn  declining  to^  sell  out  tO'  them  and  to  accept 
an  offer  for  conducting  the  periodical  on  salary.  In  the  mean- 
time they  had  realized  a  small  but  neat  profit  on  their  investment. 

After  balancing  accounts  in  the  books  of  all  their  ventures  at 
the  end  of  1902,  Stumer,  Rosenthal  &  Eckstein  found  that  they 
had  on  hand  a  considerable  amount  of  floating  capital.  Besides 
the  retail  establishments  already  mentioned,  they  had  a  whole- 
sale millinery  house,  and  were  under  contract  to  build  a  "sky- 
scraper." They  turned  from  the  distinctly  materialistic  field  of 
investment  and  asked :  "If  a  small  10  Story  Book  will  make 
a  small  profit,  why  will  not  a  large  story-book  bring  in  a  big 
profit?"  They  decided  to  start  such  a  magazine  venture,  to  make 
a  large  outlay,  take  a  large  risk,  and  tO'  await  a  large  return. 

In  looking  about  for  an  editorial  manager,  they  went  to  a 
man  connected  with  the  Chicago  Daily  News,  whose  assistant 
tO'  the  publisher  is  a  prominent  member  of  the  World  To-Day 
Company.  They  asked  Mr.  Charles  M.  Faye,  the  managing  editor 
of  that  newspaper,  with  whom  Mr.  Eckstein  had  a  personal 
acquaintance,  to  become  the  editor  of  the  proposed  magazine.  Mr. 
Faye,  instead  of  accepting,  recommended  Mr.  Trumbull  White,  a 
prominent  newspaper-man  of  the  younger  generation  in  Chicago, 
who  had  recently  been  abroad  in  charge  of  the  foreign  service  for 
The  Chicago  Record,  then  under  the  same  general  management  as 
The  Daily  Nezus.  Mr.  White  is  a  son  of  the  Middle  West 
become  a  "citizen  of  the  world,"  by  nature  enthusiastic  and 
optimistic,  and  endowed  with  a  broad  range  of  human  sympathy 
— a  man  who  has  acquired  the  cosmopolitan  point  of  view.  After 
spending  his  youth  in  an  Iowa  village  and  receiving  an  eastern 
collegiate  education  at  Amherst,  Mr.  White  did  local  newspaper 
work  and  newspaper  literary  editing  in  Chicago.  Then,  while 
at  London,  St.  Petersburg,  and  other  foreign  capitals  as  a  news- 
paper correspondent,  he  contributed  articles  to  magazines,  inci- 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  91 

dentally  serving  as  authority  on  Asiatic  affairs  for  the  World 
To-Day  when  that  magazine  was  the  Current  Encyclopedia. 
Having  been  connected  with  the  press  of  Chicago  for  quite  a 
number  of  years,  he  had  been  acquainted  with  newspaper  men 
who  had  made  futile  efforts  to  establish  literary  periodicals. 
Among  newspaper  workers  he  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  best 
qualified  to  undertake  the  editing  of  a  popular  magazine. 

Mr.  White  was  engaged  as  editor,  and  the  Red  Book  corpora- 
tion, of  which  Mr.  Eckstein  is  the  president,  was  organized.  This 
corporation  has  an  official  capitalization  of  but  a  few  thousand 
dollars.  Its  stockholders  are  members  of  the  Stumer,  Rosenthal 
&  Eckstein  firm  exclusively.  This  firm  guarantees  all  bills  against 
the  magazine  for  paper,  printing,  manuscripts  and  distribution. 
The  limit  of  Red  Book  obligations  is,  therefore,  the  total  personal 
wealth  oi  its  members.  The  financial  rate-sheets  put  this  at 
$1,000,000.  Hence,  the  Red  Book  nas  been  alone  among  Chicago 
periodical  publishing  efforts  in  having  backing  which  was,  for  all 
practical  purposes,  unlimited. 

An  estimate  of  publishing  cost  rather  startling  to  the  capital- 
ists of  the  firm  was  made  at  the  outset  by  Mr.  White,  who,  while 
engaged  to  be  editor,  had  many  of  the  duties  of  a  publisher.  He 
told  them  it  would  take  three  years  of  publishing  the  new  maga- 
zine to  place  it  on  a  self-supporting  basis,  and  that  during  such 
period  they  must  expect  to  see  a  temporary  net  less  of  $100,000. 
Accepting  the  estimate,  though  with  mental  reserv^ations  as  to  its 
accuracy,  Stumer,  Rosenthal  &  Eckstein  told  Mr.  White  to  go 
ahead  with  the  venture. 

The  only  instructions  as  to  literary  quality  given  to  the  editor 
were  to  produce  a  monthly  book  better  than  the  10  Story  Book. 
It  was  at  once  decided  that  the  magazine  should  be  devoted  to 
fiction,  that  it  should  contain  no  serials,  and  that  its  pages  should 
be  filled  with  short  stories  written  by  contemporary  authors.  First 
the  publishers  prepared  a  small  preliminary  edition,  of  which  only 
twenty  copies  were  completed  and  taken  to  the  Red  Book  office. 
They  were  never  circulated.  This  preliminary  number  contained 
only  a  meager  collection  of  stories  and  no  photographic  ilkistra- 
tions.     A  sample  copy  was  taken  to  Mr.  Shepler,  the  Western 


92  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

News  Col  manager,  experienced  in  seeing  Chicago  publications 
die  on  the  news-stands.  Mr.  Shepler  told  the  publishers  that,  as  it 
then  appeared,  their  book  was  nO'  better  than  any  of  the  many 
ten-cent  story  magazines,  and  therefore  it  would  not  go. 
They  stopped  the  binders.  They  enlarged  the  magazine,  and 
added  an  illustration  feature.  The  illustrations  of  the  stories  in 
the  experimental  number,  as  in  the  first  six  regular  issues,  were 
zinc  etchings  which  looked  cheap.  For  this  reason  some  half-tone 
feature  was  especially  desired.  In  the  enlarged  initial  number  a 
series  of  pictures  in  a  "photogaphic  art"  department  filling 
the  first  pages  of  the  book  was  inserted.  Since  then  the 
first  pages — originally  twelve,  later  twenty-eight — have  regularly 
contained  excellent  full-page  half-tones  of  the  well-known 
actresses.  In  illustrating  the  stories,  zinc  etchings  were  soon 
dropped,  and  tooled  half-tones  of  original  drawings  substituted. 
The  illustrations,  however,  have  not  been  of  good  quality,  and  the 
main  pictorial  appeal  to  the  aesthetic  sense  has  been  the  display 
of  "photographic  art." 

The  stories  give  the  magazine  its  character.  These  are  not  of 
the  classic  type,  and  severe  literary  critics  scoff  when  the  Red 
Book  is  mentioned  as  a  literary  magazine.  In  the  first  place, 
the  name  Red  Book,  and  the  magazine's  red  cover  regularly  con- 
taining a  drawing  in  which  the  figure  of  a  woman  wearing  an 
evening  gown  appears,  are  more  sensational  in  their  suggestions 
than  the  contents  of  the  stories  warrant.  Mr.  White  says  that 
his  aim  in  selecting  manuscripts  has  been  to  secure  stories  pro- 
viding "decent  entertainment  for  people  with  red  blood  in  their 
veins."  Many  of  the  stories  in  each  number  of  the  Red  Book 
have  not  been  above  the  mediocre  in  literary  form,  though  each 
has  had  some  quality  sufficiently  entertaining  to  satisfy 
the  widespread  interest  in  narrative.  But  in  each  number  there 
have  been  a  few  stories  by  the  best  of  the  fiction-writers  for  the 
accredited  American  magazines.  For  example,  Stuart  Edward 
White,  whose  interpretations  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  the  western 
mountains  have  been  widely  acclaimed,  has  been  a  Red  Book 
contributor.  Further,  stories  from  authors  who  reside  in  Eng- 
land have  been  published  regularly  in  this  Chicago^  magazine.     So 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  93 

many  of  them  have  been  used  that  Mr.  Crissey,  the  western  edi- 
torial representative  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  says  that  the 
Red  Book  publishes  more  good  brief  fiction  from  the  authors  of 
England  than  does  any  other  short-story  magazine  in  America. 

That  the  Red  Book,  presenting  this  kind  of  literary  and  pic- 
torial entertainment,  has  caught  the  fancy  of  thousands  is  shown 
by  the  sales  records  of  the  magazine.  When  the  first  edition, 
in  its  enlarged  and  revised  form,  was  put  out,  40,000  copies  were 
sent  to  the  Western  News  Co.  and  the  other  branches  of  the 
American  News  Co.  Of  these  14,000  were  returned,  showing 
a  net  first-number  circulation  larger  by  several  thousand  than 
that  of  any  preceding  literary  publication  in  Chicago.  Since 
then  the  output  has  been  increased  by  thousands  of  copies 
monthly.  For  the  February,  1905,  issue,  275,000  copies  were 
printed,  and  for  June,  1906,  338,500.  The  publishers  say  that 
during  no  month  has  the  number  of  unsold  copies  returned 
exceeded  5  per  cent,  of  the  issue. 

The  commercial  means  of  satisfying  the  order  of  aesthetic 
want  which  these  readers  manifest  is  shown  by  the  experience  of 
the  Red  Book  in  securing  its  advertising  patronage  to  be  bound 
up  in  a  bundle  of  more  material  wants.  The  aim  of  the  publishers 
is  not  to  attract  the  largest  possible  number  of  readers.  It  is, 
instead,  to  get  the  largest  possible  body  of  readers  having  the 
power  to  purchase  the  classes  of  goods  that  are  most  constantly 
and  expensively  advertised  in  magazines.  The  "ad-writers'" 
create  wants.  The  advertisements  stimulate  demands  for  the 
moderate-priced  luxuries.  While  there  is  a  constant  interaction 
between  the  effects'  of  the  advertising  pages  and  the  reading- 
matter  section,  Mr.  White  holds  that  in  the  last  analysis  the  con- 
stituency for  the  advertising  matter  is  the  one  that  controls  policy. 
That  it  should  be  so  is'  a  business  necessity  with  the  Red  Book, 
for  while  it  costs  8^^  cents  a  copy  to  produce  the  magazine,  the 
news  company  pays  only  SV^  cents  per  copy  for  it,  thus  leaving 
a  net  loss  on  sales  of  3  cents  on  each  book.  The  advertising 
revenue  must  be  secured.  The  State  Street  firm  of  merchant- 
publishers,  through  its  heavy  purchases  for  the  store  of  the  Public 
Drug  Co.,  is  in  a  position  to  command  a  large  amount  of  patent- 


94  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

medicine  advertisements,  and  during  the  first  few  months  of  the 
magazine's  publication  practically  all  of  its  advertising  pages 
were  filled  with  cure-all  announcements.  But  the  people  who  pin 
their  faith  to  proprietary-medicine  men's  assertions  are  not  the 
ones  who  buy  the  luxuries  and  fancy  staples  which  yield  the  bulk 
of  magazine  advertising  returns  at  highest  rates,  and  Mr.  White 
declares  they  are  not  the  people  interested  in  the  class  of  stories 
he  has  put  in  the  Red  Book.  Further,  Mr.  White,  in  giving  data 
for  these  papers,  said  :  "Every  magazine  that  pretends  to  decency 
in  its  contents  must  omit  the  patent-medicine  advertisements." 
The  relative  amount  of  nostrum  advertising  in  the  Red  Book  has 
constantly  decreased.  Prohibitive  rates  have  caused  this  kind  to 
be  dropped  out.  With  recognition  of  the  large  circulation  of  the 
magazine,  the  advertising  contracts  of  the  character  required 
have  been  secured  in  large  numbers.  At  the  end  of  its  second 
year,  the  Red  Book  was  on  a  profit-yielding  basis,  although  at 
one  time  $50,000  appeared  to  have  been  sunk  in  the  venture.  All 
who  are  prominently  connected  with  publishing  in  Chicago  say 
that  the  magazine  is  firmly  established  for  the  future. 

The  owners  of  the  Red  Book  at  the  beginning  of  its  third  year 
decided  to  use  their  publishing  organization  for  issuing  a  second 
short-story  magazine.  This  is  the  Monthly  Story  Magasine,  of 
which  the  first  number  appeared  in  May,  1905.  Each  number 
contains  nearly  200  pages  of  complete  stories.  Although  the 
Story-Press  Corporation  is  the  nominal  publishing  organization, 
manuscripts  used  for  this  publication  come  from  the  myriad  of 
short-story  writers.  They  are  submitted,  usually,  for  the  Red 
Book,  but  are  not  regarded  as  up  to  the  standard  of  that  maga- 
zine. The  accumulation  of  such  manuscripts  was  one  of  the 
incidents  that  led  to  the  starting  of  the  side-issue  periodical. 
Except  for  twelve  pages  of  theatrical  scenes,  reproduced  by  half- 
tones in  an  introductory  department  called  ''Stageland,"  and 
the  advertisements,  the  contents'  of  the  Monthly  Story  Magamne 
are  printed  on  the  cheapest  kind  of  paper.  On  account  of  its 
cheapness  of  production,  this  magazine,  sold  at  ten  cents  a  copy, 
brings  a  profit  from  its  circulation  of  100,000.  It  is  a  conspicuous 
example  of  commercializing  the  publishing  of  a  kind  of  literary 
periodical. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  95 

The  attention  of  the  New  York  publishers  of  magazines  has 
been  arrested  by  the  success  of  the  Red  Book.  Being  one  of  a 
very  small  number  published  in  the  West,  as  contrasted  with  the 
many  turned  out  in  New  York,  its  large  sales  in  the  general 
magazine  market  have  stood  out  conspicuously.  New  York 
magazine-publishers,  in  interviews  for  these  papers  so  stated 
explicitly.  Incidentally  the  sales  of  the  Red  Book  in  New  York 
City  have  been  larger  than  the  sales  in  Chicago,  though  not  larger 
in  proportion  to  population.  Smith's  Magazine,  brought  out  in 
New  York  after  the  Chicago^  publication  had  enjoyed  twO'  years 
of  success,  is  regarded  as  a  direct  imitation  of  the  Red  Book.  The 
most  notable  and  complimentary  New  York  recognition  of  the 
Red  Book,  however,  has  come  in  the  loss  tO'  Chicago'  of  Mr, 
White,  its  editor  for  the  first  three  years.  Tlie  well-established 
publishing  house  of  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  on  acquiring  the  high- 
grade  Booklover's  Magazine  of  Philadelphia,  and  converting  it 
into  Appleton  s  Magazine,  called  Mr.  White  to  its  editorship.  On 
May  I,  after  Mr.  Karl  Edward  Harriman,  a  short-story  and 
magazine-article  writer,  for  three  years  editor  of  the  Pilgrim, 
published  at  Battle  Creek,  Mich.,  had  been  named  as  his  successor 
with  the  Red  Book,  Mr.  White  went  to  New  York  to  assume  his 
new  editorial  duties.  The  attraction  of  Mr.  White  tO'  the  leading 
publishing  center  of  the  country  is  a  unique  recognition  of  success 
in  Chicago  as  a  growing  publishing  center. 

The  publishers  of  both  the  Red  Book  and  the  World  To-Day 
are  recognized,  by  the  publishers  of  magazines  at  New  York, 
Boston,  and  Philadelphia,  to  be  competing  in  the  general  maga- 
zine market.  The  experiences  of  the  editors  and  business  direc- 
tors of  the  World  To-Day  and  the  Red  Book  are  instructive  on 
the  limitations  and  possibilities  of  Chicago  as  a  place  for  produ- 
cing and  distributing  popular  magazines,  in  comparison  with 
those  of  New  York,  the  national  publishing  center. 

The  imprint  "Chicago"  has  given  these  magazines  an 
advantage  in  securing  benefits  from  the  metropolitan  influence 
of  Chicago  in  the  Middle  West,  subtly  aiding  them  tO'  get  large 
and  concentrated  circulations  in  that  part  of  the  national  market 
comprised  in  this  section.  But  it  has  handicapped  their  influence 
east  of  the  Alleghanies.     A  New  York  imprint  gives  the  advan- 


96  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

tage  of  New  York's  influence  as  the  national  metropolis,  not  only 
in  the  East  where  two-thirds  of  the  total  reading  is  done,  but  also 
for  a  general  circulation  scattered  throughout  the  country.  The 
World  To-Day  has  laid  all  possible  emphasis  on  its  Chicago  con- 
nection, plainly  showing  itself  by  various  articles  and  special  west- 
ern numbers  to  be  an  organ  of  Middle  West  Americanism.  The 
Red  Book  has  carried  the  word  "Chicago"  in  fine  type.  Mr. 
White,  before  he  went  to  New  York,  said  that  with  the  average 
reader,  wherever  found,  the  imprint  has  but  little  influence,  the 
question  being:  Does  the  magazine  offer  the  literary  goods 
wanted  ? 

Location  in  Chicago,  through  the  editors'  association  with  the 
type  of  cosmopolitan  life  here  manifest,  has  had  an  important 
effect  on  the  character  of  these  magazines,  making  them  typical 
of  the  composite  interest  of  America.  Dr.  Mathews'  says  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  express  the  national  life  from  the  "America- 
in-the-making  state  of  mind"  in  a  periodical  published  in  the  city 
of  New  York.  Mr.  White  cites  the  rejection  by  several  New 
York  magazine-publishers  of  a  western  story  by  a  well-known 
author,  which  later,  when  published  in  the  Red  Book,  attracted 
widespread  attention,  as  evidence  that  the  eastern  publishers  do 
not  know  the  taste  of  that  part  of  the  national  public  resident  in 
the  West.  As  exceptions  to  this  generalization,  however,  Mr. 
White,  several  months  before  his  call  to  the  East,  listed  those 
western  men  who  have  become  heads  of  New  York  publishing 
concerns.  The  western  market  is  specially  desirable  because  the 
West  is  growing  more  rapidly  than  the  East  in  population,  and 
the  fertility  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  assures  such  a  growth  con- 
tinuously. 

In  that  part  of  producing  a  magazine  which  involves  the 
securing  of  acceptable  manuscripts,  the  New  York  publisher  has, 
of  course,  advantages.  Many  more  authors  are  there,  and  con- 
sultations between  editors'  and  many  authors  can  be  had  easily. 
These  consultations  are  particularly  desirable  for  a  magazine  like 
the  World  To-Day,  for  each  number  of  which  the  editor  adopts 
a  plan,  and  then  has  many  of  the  articles  made  to  order.  How- 
ever, the  mails  are  open,  and  to  both  the  Red  Book  and  the 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  97 

World  To-Day  many  more  desirable  manuscripts  than  could  be 
used  have  been  sent  by  contributors.  At  first  the  Red  Book  suf- 
fered from  the  fact  that  authors  who  had  sent  their  productions 
to  some  of  the  Chicago  periodical  fiction-publishers  whose  maga- 
zines failed,  leaving  them  without  even  postage  to  return  unused 
manuscripts,  were  afraid  tO'  send  any  of  their  literary  creations 
to  another  Chicago^  magazine.  Mr.  White  was'  able  to  reduce 
this  handicap  and  tO'  secure  an  advantage  with  authors,  tradition- 
ally in  financial  straits,  by  means  of  his  strong  financial  backing. 
He  evolved  a  scheme  for  paying  authors  on  acceptance,  instead  of 
on  publication  of  their  productions.  Manuscripts  sent  to  the  Red 
Book  are  read  in  tlie  order  of  reception.  On  a  story  which  the 
editor  desires  to  accept  he  sets  a  price,  and  queries  the  author  of  it 
to  find  out  if  it  is  acceptable,  notifying  him  that  payment  will  be 
made  at  once.  By  following  this  plan  the  Red  Book  regularly  has 
on  hand  several  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  manuscripts  already 
paid  for.  One  pitfall  of  too  many  literary  periodicals'  attempted  at 
Chicago',  namely  a  too  frequent  use  of  the  productions  of  Chi- 
cago authors,  has'  been  avoided  by  the  Red  Book  editor,  through 
applying  the  rule  of  judging  manuscripts  in  the  order  of  their 
arrival,  regardless  of  personal  acquaintance  with  the  local  con- 
tributors. The  Red  Book's  stories  from  authors  residing  in  Eng- 
land are  contributed  by  a  literary  agency  in  New  York,  which 
represents  these  English  authors  in  America.  Native  material 
also  comes'  fromi  a  similar  agency  which  represents  American 
authors  in  America.  There  are  no'  such  agencies,  which  are  clear- 
ing-houses for  authors,  in  Chicago. 

In  securing  original  illustrations  for  fiction,  a  Chicago'  periodi- 
cal editor  is  at  an  absolute  and  unqualified  disadvantage  which, 
according  to  Mr.  White,  is  not  likely  to  be  overcome  until  there 
are  many  Chicago  magazines  making  a  constant  demand  for  the 
work  of  Illustrators.  The  capable  illustrators  are  in  New  York. 
It  is  practically  impossible  to  have  their  work  submitted  to  a 
Chicago  publisher  by  mail  in  the  same  way  that  manuscripts  of 
authors  can  be  and  are  sent  on  from  New  York.  For  illustra- 
tions of  a  given  story,  conferences  between  editor  and  artist,  in 
order  to  make  changes  and  corrections  in  drawings,  are  almost 


I 


98  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

imperative.  For  the  Red  Book  an  endeavor  to  develop  local 
artists  has  been  made.  More  than  sixty  pen-and-ink  and  wash- 
drawing  workers  have  been  tried  out.  They  have  been  drawn 
from  the  daily  newspaper  art  departments,  the  mercantile  illustrat- 
ing shops,  the  student  classes  of  the  Art  Institute,  and  also  the 
Art  Academy.  A  specially  comprehensive  trial  of  art  students 
was  provided,  manuscripts  being  given  to  them  for  competition  and 
the  prize  illustrations  used.  After  one  such  trial  the  art  classes 
were  dropped  as  a  source  of  practical  illustrators.  Some  twenty 
men,  discovered  in  newspaper  and  trade  illustrating  work,  have 
done  the  illustrating  of  Red  Book  manuscripts  as  piece-work. 
On  the  whole,  the  magazine  has  been  less  successfully  illustrated 
than  any  New  York  rival  periodical  of  the  same  literary  grade. 
A  few  of  the  magazine's  illustrators  have  done  good  work;  but 
Mr.  White,  during  his  last  year  at  Chicago,  was  in  constant  fear 
that  these  new  illustrators  would  migrate  east.  The  World  To- 
Day,  using  original  illustrations  for  its  cover  only,  has  not  felt 
the  absence  of  local  artists  so  keenly.  But  the  fact  that  the  lead- 
ing photographers  who  take  pictures  for  half-tone  illustrations  of 
scenes  bearing  on  current  events  are  established  in  New  York  has 
caused  delay  in  the  filling  of  orders  even  when  sent  by  wire.  A 
large  supply  of  satisfactory  photographs,  however,  has  been 
obtainable  from  photographers  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere  without 
too  great  difficulty. 

For  the  engraving  required  to  get  the  most  artistic  effects  in 
original  illustrations,  the  Red  Book  has  experienced  a  difficulty 
that  would  not  have  been  felt  in  New  York.  Touches  from 
hand-tooling  of  half-tone  illustrations  are  needed  to  get  the  best 
values  in  black  and  white.  At  one  engraving  house  a  workman 
has  been  specially  developed  to  do  this  class  of  work  for  the  Red 
Book.  He  has  not  become  enough  of  an  artist  to  warrant  attach- 
ing his  name  to  the  illustrations.  For  the  general  half-tone  work, 
the  Chicago  engraving  houses  are  as  proficient  as  those  any^vhere. 
The  half-tone  photograph  illustrations  in  the  World  To-Day  are 
of  the  best  magazine  quality. 

For  printing,  as  for  other  mechanical  parts  of  producing,  some 
New  York  publishers  have  their  own  plants.    A  majority  do  not, 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  99 

and  no  Chicago  magazine  publisher  is  so  equipped.  For  the  type- 
setting required  in  fine  art  printing,  like  some  of  that  in  Harper's 
Magazine,  there  is  a  large  supply  of  skilled  labor  in  New  York. 
But  the  popular  fiction  or  pictorial  review  magazine  does  not 
require  this,  and  the  development  of  high-class  trade  periodicals 
in  Chicago  has  caused  the  establishment  of  well-equipped  print- 
ing-houses, and  drawn  to  the  city  a  large  number  of  skilled  lino- 
type operators.  Labor  disputes  may  be  more  frequent  in  Chicago 
than  in  New  York.  But  one  of  Chicago's  periodical  publishers 
says  that  the  complaints  of  the  proprietors  of  the  printing 
establishments  against  the  highly  organized  Typographical  Union, 
and  tlieir  repeated  threats  of  removal  from  Chicago  are  chiefly 
diplomatic  statements  incidental  to  industrial  strife,  made  for  the 
purpose  of  holding  the  union  printers  in  check  as  much  as  possible. 
The  press-work  obtainable  in  Chicago  is  of  a  thoroughly  satis- 
factory grade. 

In  getting  the  binding  of  his  "book"  done,  the  New  York 
periodical  publisher  is  at  a  decided  advantage  over  his  few  Chi- 
cago competitors.  For  magazine-binding,  a  large  force  of  girls 
working  at  high  speed  during  only  a  few  days  each  month  is 
required.  In  New  York  there  are  so  many  magazines  coming 
from  the  presses  on  different  days  of  the  month  that  skilled  bind- 
ery workers  can  find  constant  employment  by  going  from  shop 
to  shop.  In  Chicago  the  list  of  periodicals  put  up  in  standard 
magazine  form  is  too  small  for  the  best  development  of  such 
a  force. 

When  it  comes  to  distributing,  the  publishers  of  the  two  Chi- 
cago magazines  under  consideration  have  found  an  advantage  in 
reaching  the  general  market,  and  particularly  the  western  market, 
from  the  very  fact  that  so  few  are  published  in  Chicago  as  com- 
pared with  the  many  issued  from  New  York.  The  news-stand 
sales  of  practically  all  magazines  are  made  through  the  American 
News  Co.,  which  has  a  monopoly.  The  home  office  of  the 
American  News  Co.  at  New  York  is  often  glutted  with  the  out- 
put from  the  many  New  York  magazine  publishing-houses.  The 
office  of  the  Chicago  branch,  the  Western  News  Co.,  never  is.  The 
manager  of  this  branch,  receiving  the  Chicago  magazine  output 


lOO  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

for  the  entire  field  of  the  American  News  Co.,  and  wishing  to 
make  tlie  largest  possible  business  showing  for  his  branch  of  the 
concern,  aids  the  Chicago  publishers  in  every  legitimate  way.  He 
has  been  in  a  position  tO'  turn  the  attention  of  his  entire  force 
toward  rushing  out  shipments  of  the  Chicago  magazines.  In  one 
instance,  when  the  Red  Book  issue  was  received  a  day  late,  by 
concentrating  attention  on  it,  he  caused  the  copies  to  reach  the 
retail  market  on  time.  Nearness  of  place  of  publication  to  the 
market  does  not  cause  the  same  problem  for  the  Red  Book  as  for 
the  World  To-Day,  in  its  competition  with  review  magazines. 
There  is  no  element  of  immediate  timeliness  in  the  contents  of  the 
Red  Book  fiction.  Its  issues  are  printed  a  month  before 
their  distribution.  But  the  World  To-Day,  in  order 
that  its  record  of  the  events  of  the  month  may  be 
complete,  must  hold  its  columns  open  until  the  last  possi- 
ble day  before  the  date  of  publication.  Hence,  if  the  first  aim  of 
the  publishers  were  to  reach  the  entire  national  market,  they 
would  be  at  a  disadvantage  in  competition  with  publishers  whose 
offices  are  at  New  York,  nearer  to  the  one-third  of  the  country's 
territory  in  which  two^thirds  of  the  reading  public  is  to^  be  found. 
But  reaching  the  market  from  rival  centers  works  both  ways. 
The  World  To-Day  has  an  advantage  over  eastern  publications' 
in  getting  quickly  to  its  most  desired  constituency  in  the  Middle 
West.  Another  fact  in  the  general  publishing  situation  helps 
determine  the  date  of  publication  for  the  World  To-Day.  It  is' 
that  most  of  the  ten-  and  fifteen-cent  magazines  appear  at  the 
stands  ten  days  before  the  first  day  of  the  month  indicated  in 
their  date  lines.  Mr.  Ernst  believes  that  it  is  more  desirable  to 
have  the  World  To-Day  come  out  at  the  same  time  as  the  popular 
magazines  than  tO'  have  its  review  cover  later  days.  Hence  the 
period  it  embraces  is  from  the  fifteenth  to  the  fifteenth ;  and  while 
the  New  York  magazines  with  which  it  competes  come  out  later 
— the  Reviezv  of  Reviews,  a  day  or  two'  before  the  first  of  the 
month  of  its  date  line ;  the  World's  Work,  between  the  antecedent 
twenty-fifth  and  thirtieth;  and  Current  Literature,  on  the  thirti- 
eth— the  twentieth  is  the  date  on  which  the  World  To-Day 
appears. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  lOl 

As  to  gratis  advertising  of  periodicals,  the  newspapers  are  as 
quick  to  publish  "literary  reading  notices"  sent  out  from  Chicago 
publishers'  offices  as  from  those  in  New  York.  In  securing  annual 
subscribers  whose  orders  are  filled  direct  from  magazine  offices, 
results  depend  on  the  normal  advertising  through  the  news-stand 
displays  and  on  special  campaigns,  there  being  nO'  advantage  in 
location  at  any  particular  publishing  center. 

In  soliciting  contracts  for  advertising  tO'  be  published  in  a 
magazine,  there  is  a  great  gain  from  location  in  New  York,  since 
the  largest  part  of  general  advertising  is  placed  through  the  New 
York  offices  of  advertising  agencies.  The  Red  Book  and  World 
To-Day  publishers,  and  those  of  other  Chicago  periodicals,  have 
endeavored  to  offset  their  disadvantage  on  this  score  by  maintain- 
ing eastern  offices  in  New  York  chiefly  for  the  handling  of 
advertising  business. 

Summing  up,  the  disadvantages  of  location  in  Chicago  for 
popular  literary  and  quasi-literary  general  magazine  publishing 
are  not  as  great  as  they  would  at  first  appear  from  a  casual  recog- 
nition of  New  York's  leading  place  as  the  literary  publishing 
center  of  the  country,  and  the  advantages  for  success  in  pub- 
lishing with  a  view  to  the  western  part  of  the  national  market 
are  numerous  and  effective. 

The  10  Story  Book,  whose  early  profits  led  the  owners  of  the 
Red  Book  to  start  that  magazine,  sprang  up,  almost  by  accident, 
out  of  a  syndicate  for  supplying  fifty  newspapers  of  the  country 
with  short  stories  daily.  This  syndicate,  the  Daily  Story  Publish- 
ing Co.,  was  organized  by  Mr.  Dwight  Allyn,  with  whom  was 
associated  Mr.  James  S.  Evans,  another  Chicago  newspaper-man, 
now  an  editorial  writer,  in  December,  1899.  They  accumulated  a 
large  collection  of  "cracking  good  stories,"  which  Mr.  Allyn,  the 
secretary  and  manager  of  the  company,  says  were  toO'  good  for  the 
newspapers,  since  the  editors  of  newspapers,  with  a  view  to 
family  fireside  reading,  want  principally  "sissy"  stories.  So  the 
proprietors  of  the  Daily  Story  Publishing  Co.  conceived  the  idea 
of  getting  rid  of  some  of  these  surplus  stories'  by  putting  out  ten 
of  them  at  a  time  in  a  small-sized,  thin,  paper-covered  book.  The 
first  issue  of  10,000  was  tried  on  the  Chicago  public  exclusively. 


I02  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

The  story-books  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  sixty  boys  fitted  out 
in  striking  red  coats  and  white  trousers.  The  boys  hawked  them 
from  the  street  corners  in  the  loop  district  until  stopped  by  the 
police.  But  that  was  not  until  sales  had  proved  Chicago  to  have 
in  its  population  a  large  class  of  people  interested  in  smart  stories. 
The  Western  News  Co.  called  on  the  publishers  for  further  issues, 
a  post-office  entry  was  made,  and  the  Daily  Story  Pubishing  Co. 
began  the  periodic  publishing  of  the  lo  Story  Book  for  the  general 
fiction  magazine  market. 

The  choice  of  the  word  "book"  for  a  part  of  the  name  indicates 
an  influence  of  the  bibelot  publishing  movement  begim  with  the 
Chap  Book  six  years  before.  In  its  attention  to  the  unique,  weird, 
and  bizarre  subjects  and  the  mystery  in  detective  tales  the  lO 
Story  Book  was  at  first  regarded  as  an  imitation  of  that  periodical 
"devoted  exclusively  to-  original,  unusual,  fascinating  stories" 
published  in  Boston — the  Black  Cat.  But  through  the  years  it 
has  budded  some  offshoots  from  the  main  branch  of  studied  ori- 
ginality. "An  emotion  with  every  story"  is  one  of  the  mottoes'  of 
those  directing  the  periodical.  While  the  stories  are  not  indecent, 
the  manager  frankly  says  that  he  is  not  squeamish.  Although 
the  stories  are  not  positively  risque,  in  many  of  them  sexual 
passion  provides  the  theme  for  "human  interest."  Both 
accredited  and  unknown  writers  are  the  authors  of  the  manu- 
scripts used,  many  of  them  coming  from  men  who  dream  and 
write  in  the  South.  Stories  by  Chicago  writers  have  been  used 
freely,  among  others  those  of  the  late  H.  H.  S.  Canfield,  an  author 
skilful  in  the  satirical  vein.  The  editor,  Mr.  Henry  L.  Blaisdell, 
a  University  of  Wisconsin  graduate,  formerly  in  newspaper  work 
at  Rockford,  111.,  says  he  judges  manuscripts  more  for  action  than 
for  literary  form.  Most  of  the  stories,  however,  are  not  badly 
written.  They  are  illustrated  by  Ike  Morgan  and  other  local 
newspaper  artists,  the  illustrations  being  printed  with  good 
effects',  from  zinc  etchings,  which  are  one-fourth  as  expensive  as 
half-tones. 

The  magazine  has  a  constituency  of  50.000.  Its  readers  are 
found  exclusively  in  cities.  Country  people  are  not  interested  in 
it.     There  is  a  big  demand  from  people  in  hotels,  and  also  from 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  103 

commuters.  Mr.  Allyn  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  development  of 
suburban  train  service  has  helped  his  sales  immensely. 

When  the  State  Street  merchants  withdrew  their  investment 
and  influence  from  the  10  Story  Book,  it  lost  the  advertising  they 
could  command.  But  Mr.  P.  H.  Grimes,  the  proprietor  of  a  Chi- 
cago saloon,  invested  capital  in  it,  becoming  president  of  the  Daily 
Story  Publishing  Co.,  and  the  magazine  has  gradually  secured  a 
fair  amount  of  advertising  patronage,  although  the  manager  has 
considered  moving  to  New  York  for  position  in  the  competition 
for  advertising.  However,  the  cost  of  producing  the  10  Story 
Book  in  Chicago  is,  comparatively,  so  low  that  there  is  a  profit  on 
sales,  and  removal  is  not  likely.  Its  permanence  is  assured  as 
long  as  large  parts  of  city  populations  retain  a  taste  for  incidents 
drawn  from  spiced  imagination. 

The  Sunday  Magazine  oi  the  Sunday  Record-Herald,  a  credit- 
able magazine  of  popular  literature  not  the  least  journalistic  in 
tone,  was  originated  chiefly  from  the  desire  of  the  publisher  of  a 
metropolitan  daily  to  secure  the  advertising  containing  half-tones 
and  other  illustrations  which  do  not  show  up  well  on  newspaper 
prints,  despite  the  high  development  of  the  process  for  illustrating 
the  general  and  Sunday  supplement  sections  of  the  papers.  This 
kind  oi  advertising  cannot  be  secured  for  the  ordinary  pages  of 
a  newspaper.  Sunday  supplements  of  excellent  hard-finish  paper, 
their  contents  profusely  illustrated  with  excellent  half-tones,  had 
been  issued  with  the  Chicago  Chronicle,  the  Nei.v  York  Tribune, 
and  other  papers.  Newspaper  publishers  were  feeling  after  plans 
to  convert  their  magazine  supplements,  printed  on  regulation-size 
newspaper  pages,  into  genuine  magazines.  In  1903  Mr.  Frank  B. 
Noyes,  publisher  of  the  Chicago  Record-Herald,  worked  into 
definite  form  a  plan  to  bring  out  such  a  magazine, 
to  be  on  the  order  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
published  at  Philadelphia,  and  Collier's  Weekly,  of  New  York, 
its  pages  to  be  of  the  weekly  journal  size,  14^  by  10% 
inches,  as  contrasted  with  the  larger  pages  of  a  newspaper  and 
the  smaller,  9^  by  6^  inch  pages,  of  the  standard-size  monthly 
magazine  such  as  the  World  To-Day  and  the  Red  Book.  It  was 
estimated  that  the  expense  of  producing  such  a  magazine,  to  be 


I04  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

circulated  with  the  newspaper  as  a  bonus,  without  extra  charge, 
would  be  heavy.  To  lighten  the  burden,  Mr.  Noyes  and  Mr. 
Charles  W.  Knapp,  proprietor  of  the  St.  Louis  Republic,  associ- 
ated with  him  in  developing  the  scheme,  turned  to  the  prevailing 
industrial  idea  of  co-operaton  and  syndicating.  If  copies  of  the 
magazine,  alike  except  for  the  name  on  the  title-page,  could  be 
circulated  with  one  Sunday  paper  in  each  of  the  non-competing 
centers  of  Sunday  newspaper  circulation,  their  publishers  acting 
in  combination  and  sharing  the  expense,  this  could  easily  be  met. 
An  organization  called  the  Associated  Sunday  Magazines  was  in- 
corporated. In  November,  1903,  the  Sunday  Magazine  of  the 
Sunday  Record-Herald,  Chicago,  and  of  the  Sunday  editions  of 
five  other  papers — the  St.  Louis  Republic,  the  Pittsburgh  Post,  the 
Philadephia  Press,  the  New  York  Tribune,  and  the  Boston  Post — 
began  to  appear  reguarly.  Since  then,  the  Washington  Post,  the 
Baltimore  Herald,  and  the  Minneapolis  Journal  have  been  added  to 
the  list.  The  combined  circulation  is  over  1,000,000  copies  a 
Sunday.  Further,  the  publishers  point  out  that,  unlike  the  ordi- 
nary parts  of  a  Sunday  newspaper,  the  copies  of  the  magazine  are 
kept  on  reading-tables  during  the  week.  The  magazine  advertis- 
ing sought  has  been  secured  at  profitable  rates. 

The  range  of  taste  appealed  to  in  the  Sunday  Magazine  is 
wide.  It  is  that  of  the  average  newspaper  reader.  First  there  is 
the  city  circulation.  The  geographical  extent  of  the  magazine's 
constituency  is  dependent  on  the  schedules  of  the  Saturday  night 
and  Sunday  morning  trains  carrying  newspaper  mail  to  the  towns 
along  railroads,  nO'  copies  to^  speak  of  going  to  the  rural  districts 
where  papers  are  received  in  wrappers.  From  Chicago  it  goes 
mainly  to  Illinois,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  southern  Wisconsin,  south- 
western Michigan,  and  northern  Indiana.  To  supply  the  desires 
of  this  clientele,  stories  and  articles  by  accepted  authors,  written 
in  their  less  serious  manner,  are  published  in  the  magazine,  which 
contains  no  news  features.  Many  of  the  short  stories  and  poems 
are  of  the  sentimental  type.  Recently  a  serial,  "Sir  Nigel,"  a 
historical  romance  of  knightly  adventure  by  Sir  Arthur  Conan 
Doyle,  attracted  attention  to  the  periodical.  The  titles  of  the 
stories  and  articles  are  printed  in  large  light-faced  type,  like  that 
used  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  and  extend  across  the  three 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  105 

columns  of  each  page.  The  magazine  is  well  illustrated  with 
original  work  by  artists  in  New  York.  The  editorial  office  is  in 
that  city,  and  the  editor  is  Mr.  William  A.  Taylor,  formerly  in 
Chicago,  the  Sunday  editor  of  the  Record-Herald. 

Wayside  Tales  is  a  ten-cent  monthly  which  proclaims  itself  to 
be  "the  western  short- story  magazine."  On  account  of  a  some- 
what belated  emphasis  on  the  western  interests,  and  more  on 
account  of  insufficient  business  backing  in  the  past,  this  maga- 
zine, though  now  somewhat  rejuvenated,  has  had  a  struggling 
existence.  Wayside  Tales  is  one  of  the  periodicals  drawn  to  Chi- 
cago by  this  center's  attractive  power  as  a  metropolis.  It  was 
started  at  Detroit,  Mich.,  in  1899,  for  its  first  year  was  largely 
local  in  character,  and  bore  the  name  Detroit  Monthly.  Its 
original  publishers  continued  it  until  May,  1903.  Three  months 
later  the  Sampson-Hodges  Co.,  an  organization  for  the  syndicat- 
ing of  Sunday  "feature"  articles  for  newspapers,  of  which  Mr. 
Lewis  D.  Sampson,  a  former  tutor  at  the  Northern  Indiana 
Normal  School  and  newspaper-man,  was  the  president  and 
manager,  revived  the  magazine.  They  brought  out  one  number 
at  Detroit,  and  then  moved  the  office  of  publication  to  Chicago. 
For  a  year  and  two  months  they  published  the  magazine  here. 
It  contained  a  heterogeneous  display  of  tales — some  good,  some 
inferior — chiefly  by  western  writers.  The  owners  were  so 
inadequately  supplied  with  capital  that  they  could  not  always  pay 
for  even  second-rate  manuscripts,  could  not  afford  illustrations 
or  attractive  covers,  and  had  difficulty  in  paying  the  bills  for 
printing,  not  of  the  best  quality.  They  found  the  Western  News 
Co.  rule  of  holding  back  the  cash  returns  on  three  full  issues — a 
rule  made  by  the  distributing  monopoly  because  of  losses  from 
ephemeral  magazine  ventures — to  be  specially  hard.  Further, 
uncertainty  as  tO'  permanent  name  caused  embarrassment.  Mr. 
Sampson  planned  to  change  the  name  to  Wayside  Magasinc  and 
to  insert  a  sprinkling  of  serious  articles'.  This  inconstancy  as 
to  title  was  in  contrast  with  the  permanent  attractive  power  of  the 
name  of  the  Red  Book,  selected  after  twenty  others  had  been  con- 
sidered, but  chosen  to  stand  as  final.  For  all  these  reasons,  in 
January,  1906,  the  Wayside  Tales  company  went  into  involuntary 
bankruptcy.     The  tying-up  of  manuscripts  in  the  hands  of  a 


io6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

receiver  caused  a  scathing  editorial  of  the  magazine's  editor,  Miss 
Gertrude  M.  Murdock,  a  Chicago  review-writer,  to  appear  in  a 
contributors'  organ  called  The  Editor.  Mrs.  Warren  Springer, 
a  club  woman  of  means  and  friend  of  Miss  Murdock,  then 
invested  several  thousand  dollars  in  a  new  company  which  bought 
the  magazine  at  a  receiver's  sale. 

This  was  the  M.-S.  Co.,  the  present  publishers.  Mr.  Murray 
S.  Schloss,  who'  had  been  a  student  of  various  philosophies  at  Mid- 
dle West  universities,  backed  by  his  father,  a  wealthy  retired 
merchant,  was  the  heaviest  investor.  In  three  months  he  became 
sole  owner  and  also  manager  and  editor.  Mr.  Schloss  had  been 
ambitious  to  participate  in  social  reform  through  the  medium  of  a 
magazine,  and  for  a  month  or  so  had  been  managing  editor  of 
Tomorrow,  "a  magazine  of  the  changing  order,"  which  had  been 
started  with  Oscar  Lovell  Triggs  as  editor-in-chief.  Mr.  Schloss 
has  made  signed  editorials,  by  the  editor,  such  as  one  in  the  May, 
1906,  number,  in  which  he  declared  John  Alexander  Dowie  a 
modern  prophet  and  Zion  City  an  expression  of  the  times  through 
garbing  industry  in  religion,  a  leading  feature.  But  as'  the  result 
of  high  prices  paid  for  story-writers'  manuscripts,  for  plentiful 
illustrations,  and  for  printing  the  pages  with  all  the  lines  in  large, 
clear,  black  letters  extending  their  full  width,  the  magazine  has 
become  popular.  Large  sales  are  reported.  Within  the  last  few 
months  a  circulation  manager  came  on  from  New  York  to  push 
the  sales.  In  June,  1906,  the  editor  suffered  nervous  prostration, 
and  it  was  announced  that  the  July  number  would  be  published 
at  New  York,  whither  other  interests  called  the  circulation 
manager  for  attention  during  a  part  of  his  time.  It  is  possible, 
therefore,  that  the  magazine  no  longer  will  be  proclaimed  a  west- 
em  publication. 

The  newest  expression  of  unqualified  though  enlarged  west- 
ernism  in  the  form  of  a  magazine  is  the  Greater  West,  a  monthly 
periodical  of  which  Vol.  I,  No.  i,  appeared  in  October,  1905.  The 
first  object  sought  in  this'  magazine  is  to  portray,  by  articles 
expressing  glowing  sentiment,  and  set  of¥  with  illustrations',  par- 
ticularly of  mountain  scenery,  the  physical  nature  and  life  of 
the  vast  region  between  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  Pacific 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  107 

coast.  The  second  object  is  to  stimulate  the  mutual  interests 
between  the  lovers  of  the  fine  arts  in  this  region  and  artists  where- 
ever  they  may  be.  The  editor  and  publisher  is  Mrs.  Marian  A. 
White,  and  the  office  of  publication  at  her  residence,  in  Chicago, 
"the  Gateway  of  the  Greater  West."  Mrs.  White  is  a  lecturer 
who  has  delivered  a  popular  discourse  entitled  "The  Greater 
West."  She  had  been  for  five  years  editor  of  the  Fine  Arts  Jour- 
nal, another  Chicago  magazine  in  which,  by  somewhat  flowery 
writing,  she  has  earnestly  worked  "to  promote  and  foster,"  as  she 
says,  "a  love  for  art  American  in  type  and  the  work  of  the  Ameri- 
can artist  in  particular."  From  that  magazine  she  resigned  on 
the  ground  that  it  had  degenerated  into  a  "write-up  periodical." 

Several  dilettante  magazines  have  been  started  in  Chicago 
during  the  present  decade.  One  rather  inclined  to  this  order  is 
Events,  devoted  to  scattered  fiction,  the  stage,  society,  and  wo- 
man's clubs.  This  was  begun  in  1901,  with  Mrs.  Frances  Arm- 
strong Woods  as  editor.  Miss  Murdock,  formerly  of  Wayside 
Tales,  recently  took  part  in  editing  it. 

With  an  office  of  publication  in  the  Fine  Arts  Building,  where 
there  is  an  upper  floor  teeming  with  a  type  of  life  whose  mixture 
of  serious  fine-arts  effort  and  dilettantism  has  been  portrayed  with 
whimsical  satire  by  Henry  B.  Fuller  in  "Under  the  Skylights," 
the  Sketch  Book  was  created  in  1902.  This  is  a  well-illustrated 
monthly  devoted  to  art.  Through  a  series  of  changing  editor- 
ships it  has  improved  in  quality  and  secured  some  influence.  It  is 
still  published  at  the  Fine  Arts  Building. 

Quite  a  number  of  the  periodicals  bordering  on  the  dilettante 
grade  have  been  typically  ephemeral.  Rubric,  the  beautiful 
monthly  magazine,  containing  poems,  short  stories,  and  the  work 
of  young  artists,  into  which  the  Blue  Sky  was  merged,  was  begun 
in  October,  1901,  and  faded  away  December,  1902.  It  was  pub- 
lished at  the  Studio  Building,  another  of  the  artists'  headquarters. 

Among  the  dusty  fragments,  the  monuments  to  this  sort  of 
effort  tO'  be  found  in  the  Chicago  Public  Library,  is  a  file  of  a 
few  numbers  of  the  Muse.  This  magazine,  comprehensively 
avowing  devotion  to  "Literature,  Music,  Art  and  the  Drama," 
contained  soulful  versicles,  stories,  and  articles,  and  was  artis- 


lo8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

tically  illustrated.  Its  mechanical  execution  was  of  such  an  order 
that  the  price  was  put  at  20  cents  a  copy  and  $2  a  year.  Mr. 
Charles  E.  Nixon  was  the  editor.  While  the  main  office  of  the 
Muse  Publishing  Co.  was  in  the  Fine  Arts  Building,  Chicago, 
the  periodical  advertised  New  York,  Boston,  and  Paris  offices. 
The  Muse,  as  such,  appears  to  have  been  more  than  a  dream  for 
three  months.  The  last  number  filed  was  that  of  April,  1903. 
On  the  cover  of  this  number  a  female  figure,  in  pictorial  bas- 
relief,  hovered  over  the  following  statement :  ''The  Muse,  a  Con- 
solidation of  The  Philharmonic ,  Werner's  Magazine  of  Expres- 
sion and  Literature,  Music  and  Four  O'Clock."  Philharmonic 
was  begun  in  January,  1901.  In  1903  the  name  Muse  was 
chosen.  Werner's  Magazine  was  absorbed  in  February,  1903, 
and  Four  O'Clock  in  March.  But  despite  its  varied  strands  of 
publishing  poesy,  the  Muse  ceased. 

''The  Princess,  robed  in  modest  violet  (ink),  greets  you, 
gentle  reader,  in  the  charming  month  of  April  that  poetic  natures 
love,  and  on  the  threshold  of  a  century  destined  to  be  the  most 
wonderful  in  the  world's  progress."  So  an  introduction  to  No. 
I,  of  a  magazine  appearing  in  1901,  and  now  on  file  in  the  Chi- 
cago Historical  Society's  museum,  began.  It  continued  in  part: 
Representative  of  the  highest  ideals  as  embraced  in  "Fine  Arts,"  synon- 
ymous with  Literature,  Sculpture,  Painting,  Architecture,  Music,  Drama  and 
Handicraft,  The  Princess  will  endeavor  to  please  the  cosmopolitan  taste  of  a 
public  broad  and  progressive,  by  means  of  short  stories,  special  articles,  timely 
and  novel,  signed  by  talented  writers,  with  illustrations  by  capable  artists 
and  snap  shots  of  human  interest. 

This  gently  aesthetic  promise  was  carried  out,  but  the  delicately 
tinted  magazine  withered  and  died  in  December,  1902.  Inci- 
dentally the  periodical  was  used  to  announce  that  the  "time  was 
at  hand  for  bookings"  with  the  Princess  Lecture,  Lyric,  and  Dra- 
matic Bureau,  of  which  Giselle  D'Unger,  the  publisher,  was 
proprietor. 

Ephemeral  bibelots,  for  which  there  was  a  craze  in  the  early 
nineties,  have  appeared  sporadically  since  then.  The  phenomenon 
of  the  budding  of  short-lived  periodicals  of  this  type,  and  other 
varieties,  is  so  constant  and  general  that  since  January,  1901,  the 
Bulletin  of  Bibliography,  Boston,  has  maintained  a  department 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  109 

headed  "Births  and  Deaths."  In  this  record  there  have  appeared 
the  names  of  several  pubhcations  attempted  at  Chicago  in  the 
present  decade. 

The  little  magazine  glinting  most  of  the  literati's  cleverness 
launched  at  Chicago  in  the  last  few  years  was  the  Bachelor  Book. 
Some  "bachelor  girls" — Page  Waller  Sampson  and  Marion  Thor- 
ton  Egbert — created  it.  In  the  story  of  the  Bachelor  Book,  pub- 
lished in  the  Blue  Sky  Magazine,  January,  1902,  Thomas  Wood 
Stevens,  of  the  Blue  Sky  Press,  at  which  it  was'  printed,  says  of 
it :  "The  Bachelor  in  his  real  life  was  dainty,  unthrift,  ready  of 
purse,  and  blade,  a  beau."  Its  contents  were  essentally  the  "non- 
essential," "meteoric  tinsel."  William  Ellis',  philosophically 
inclined,  and  bent  on  converting  the  Bachelor  Book  into  a  young 
men's  home  journal,  acquired  it  after  eight  appearances,  took  it 
to  Wausau,  Wis.,  and  brought  out  a  ninth  number,  which  was  "a 
ponderous  corpse  in  a  green  cloak." 

At  Evanston,  the  so-called  classic  suburb,  three  clever  bibelots 
were  published  briefly  by  Mr.  William  S.  Lord.  One  was  Noon, 
appearing  monthly  from  October,  1900,  to  October,  1902.  and 
containing  in  its  October,  1901,  number  a  collection  of  "the  best 
nonsense  verse,"  chosen  by  Josephine  Dodge  Daskam.  Another 
was  the  Book-Booster,  "a  periodical  of  puff,"  of  which  there  was 
one  number,  December,  1901.  The  third  was  the  Bilionstine,  "a 
periodical  of  knock,"  two  numbers,  May,  1901,  and  October. 
1901.  Its  contents  were  written  by  B.  L.  Taylor,  now  connected 
with  Puck,  and  reproduced  from  the  Chicago  Daily  Tribune.  They 
were  exclusively  satire  directed  at  Elbert  Hubbard's  Philistine. 

Other  bibelots,  since  dead,  were :  the  Goose  Quill,  "an  Anglo- 
American  magazine,"  February,  1900,  to  February,  1903:  the 
Jester,  January,  1901 ;  Two  Penny  Classics,  April,  1901 ;  the  Yel- 
lozv  Dog,  "a  monthly  short-story  magazine,"  April,  1901 ;  Items, 
"the  twentieth-century  pocket  journal,"  a  weekly,  March,  17, 
1902;  and  the  Gauntlet,  "a  magazine  for  the  honest,"  March, 
1903. 

Two  little  periodicals,  started  recently,  have  not  yet  passed 
away.  One,  the  Pageant,  was  begun  in  June,  1905,  and  is  pub- 
lished by  A.  L.  Langworthy,  the  craftsman  now  at  the  head  of 


110  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

the  Blue  Sky  Press.  It  contains  reprints  of  archaic  literature. 
The  other  is  the  O.  P.  Magazine — a  minute  monstrosity,  which 
appeared  first  July  i,  1905.  The  title  is  explained  as  follows: 
"The  Orinthorhynchus  Paradoxus  is  the  most  different  of  ani- 
mals. This  magazine  is  the  most  different  of  magazines.  Hence 
its  name." 

In  the  list  of  extant  periodicals  begun  since  1900  is  one  of  the 
type  in  which  home  study  is  popularized  by  means  of  the  literary 
flavor  and  illustrations.  This  is  the  People's  Magazine  and  Home 
University,  published  at  Oak  Park,  a  suburb  of  Chcago.  The 
publishers  designate  themselves  as  "The  Home  University  Asso- 
ciation." Inexpensive  reprints  of  classic  fiction  and  poetry,  and 
studies  in  literature,  are  the  leading  features  of  this  journal, 
which  was  started  in  1901.  Its  circulation  is  chiefly  in  country 
towns. 

A  boy's  story  paper,  the  Star  Monthly,  started  in  1894  and 
now  very  prosperous,  has'  a  circulation  of  1 50,000.  It  is  filled  for 
the  most  part  with  stories  of  adventure,  and  in  literary  quality 
grades  between  the  Youth's  Companion  of  Boston  and  the  "nickle 
library  thrillers."  It  appears  in  small  journal  form,  and  bound, 
the  cover  design  usually  suggesting  active  boy  life.  It  is  pub- 
lished by  the  Hunter  Publishing  Co.,  at  Oak  Park,  the  home  of 
Colonel  Hunter,  secretary  of  the  W.  D.  Boyce  Co.,  Chicago,  pub- 
lishers of  money-making  "family-story"  periodicals.  Its  large 
advertising  patronage  is  mainly  of  the  mail-order  variety. 

Among  the  prosperous  current  publications  issued  from  Chi- 
cago are  many  "family-story"  journals,  begun  in  the  nineties  and 
1900's,  as  well  as  the  Chicago  Ledger,  established  in  the  seventies, 
and  others  established  in  past  decades  and  already  mentioned. 
They  have  enormous  circulations.  Some  of  the  typical  periodicals 
of  this  class  as  the  Household  Guest,  begun  in  1891,  circulation  at 
present,  250,000;  Homefolks,  1896,  300,000;  Facts  and  Fiction, 
1896,  78,000;  the  Homemaker,  1903,  with  which  is  consolidated 
Information,  1904,  150,000;  and  Home  Life,  begun  at  Cairo  and 
Pontiac,  Mich.,  1892,  moved  to  Chicago,  1900,  300.000.  All  told, 
at  least  nineteen  of  the  family-story  genus  were  begun  in  the 
nineties,  and  six  in  the  present  decade.     Only  a  few  have  failed, 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  m 

though  many  have  been  merged  with  others,  some  pubHshed 
elsewhere.  Among  such  was  Conkey's  Home  Journal,  which  was 
run  for  a  year  in  1897,  as  the  American  Home  Journal,  then  taken 
over  by  the  large  printing  firm  of  W.  B.  Conkey  &  Co.,  and 
ostensibly  published  for  the  so-called  American  Musical  Associa- 
tion. A  collection  of  early  numbers  at  the  Chicago  Historical 
Society  library  shows  it  was  at  first  a  rather  high-grade  mail- 
order paper  in  contents,  but  it  became  one  of  the  ordinary  kind, 
secured  a  circulation  of  200,000,  and  in  1905  was  merged  in  the 
Woman's  Magazine,  of  St.  Louis,  which  at  ten  cents  a  year  has 
the  biggest  mail-order  circulation  in  the  country — 1,592,000. 
The  price  of  most  of  the  Chicago  "family  story"  monthlies  is 
fifty  cents  a  year,  and  at  that  their  lists  are  large  enough. 

Chicago  readers,  including  the  poorer  people,  never  see  them. 
They  circulate  in  the  country.  Because  of  pressure  from  the 
Post-Office  Department,  their  literary  quality  has  recently  been 
raised  a  notch.  For  instance,  Mr.  Howard  I.  Shaw,  editor  of 
Home  Life,  has  published  some  of  "The  Final  Adventures  of 
Sherlock  Holmes,"  by  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle,  in  his  paper.  But 
it  is  the  advertising  columns  that  are  read  most  faithfully  by  the 
country  people.  In  them  every  kind  of  goods,  from  buggies  to 
hairpins,  is  described,  in  advertisements  for  mail-order  concerns 
large  and  small.  These  are  goods  to  be  purchased  on  orders  by 
mail.  Because  of  Chicago's  advantages  as  a  distributing  center,  the 
city  has  become  a  center  for  mail-order  houses.  In  the  last  twelve 
years,  particularly,  several  of  these  houses  have  built  up  an 
enormous  business  along  the  lines  laid  out  by  Montgomery  Ward 
&  Co.  For  example.  Sears,  Roebuck  &  Co.  have  gone  to  the  front 
with  a  plant  covering  two  square  blocks.  These  houses  do  but 
little  business  in  the  South,  because  the  colored  people  and 
"crackers"  are  negligent  about  paying.  The  bulk  of  mail-order 
sales  are  in  the  Middle  West.  Tlie  bulk  of  mail-order  paper  cir- 
culation is  in  the  same  territory.  Mr.  Shaw  says  that  for  country 
people  who  cannot  get  to  the  city  for  shopping,  the  advertising 
columns  of  mail-order  papers,  and  the  catalogues  of  mail-order 
firms,  are  almost  literally  department  stores  in  which  wares  are 
spread  out  before  them.    With  Chicago's  development  as  a  mail- 


112 


THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 


order  house  center,  the  city  has  also  achieved  the  doubtful  honor 
of  becoming  a  leading  "family-story"  paper  center.  Such  papers 
are  almost  a  caricature  of  the  commercialization  of  the  literary 
interest. 

VII.   SUMMARY  OF  GENERAL  CONCLUSIONS,  INCLUDING  STA- 
TISTICS OF  THE  PERIODICALS 
"If  so  soon  I  was  done  for 
I  wonder  what  I  was  begun  for." 

—Old  Rhyme. 

The  deductions  from  the  facts  collected  for  these  papers'  have 
been  stated  and  discussed  in  generalizations  interspersed  through 
the  series  of  stories  of  the  efforts  to  establish  the  various  literary 
periodicals  of  Chicago.  Some  answers  to  the  questions  put  at  the 
outset  have  been  presented.  A  summary  of  the  conclusions  which 
stand  out  most  conspicuously  is  offered  in  the  following 
paragraphs. 

FROM  THE  STATISTICS 

I.  There  has  been  a  constant  manifestation  of  the  general 
aesthetic  interest,  on  its  creative  side,  in  the  up-springing  of  liter- 
ary magazines  and  periodicals  at  Chicago  in  every  stage  of  tlie 
city's'  history.  All  told,  306  periodicals  with  some  sort  of  literary 
interest  dominant  in  their  pages  have  been  attempted.  The 
following  table  shows  the  constancy  of  the  phenomenon : . 


Decadal  Period  of  Origin 

Forties  and  fifties  (prairie  days  to  war). 

Sixties  to  fire  (to  1871  inclusive) 

Seventies  (after  the  fire) 

Eighties 

Nineties 

1900  to  1906 

Total   


Per  cent,  of 
Total 


2.  In  character,  these  periodicals,  broadly  classed  as  literary, 
are  of  fifteen  types,  ranging  from  the  genuinely  literary,  with 
chief  interest  in  form  according  to  the  standard  derived  from 
classic  literature,  down  to  the  "family-story"  paper,  with  rather 
crude  expression  of  the  mere  interest  in  story.     The  "western" 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO 


"3 


interest,  or  some  modification  of  it,  is  common  to  all,  this  being 
the  general  variation  in  the  universal  literary  interest  here.  The 
following  statistical  table,  for  which  classifications  are  necessarily 
more  or  less  arbitrary,  indicates  the  variety : 


Type 


Decade  of  Origin 


'■SfS'c 


a  « 


•S 

Bo 

0  Ov 

2 

0  w 

;z; 

H 

13 

14 

73 

I 

14 

5 

10 

33 

3 

8 

I 

4 

2 

7 

7 

I 

24 

3 

I 

13 

16 

5 

62 

16 

17 

60 

8 

5 

23 

6 

5 

21 

6 

8 

15 

3 

2 

IS 
4 

20 

20 

70 

70 

48 

306 

a  iS 


Literary 

Literary-miscellany  . 
Literary-information. 

Literary-news 

Literary-fashions  .  .  . 

Literary-society 

Juvenile  literature  . . . 
Juvenile-family  story 

Family  story 

Illustrated 

Fine  arts 

Humor 

Quaint  literature .... 
Literary  criticism  .  .  . 
Literature  of  sport  .  . 

Duplicates 

Net  total 


12 
9 
3 


5 
27 


10 

5 

10 
6 
3 


6 

46 


14 

7 


47 


14 


3 

I 
2 

1-7 
12 

4 
6 
I 
5 
3 
II 
68 


0.34 

•OS 
.11 

■03 

.01 

.02 

.08 

.04 

.20 

.20* 

.08 

.07 

•05 

•OS 

.01 

•23 
1. 00 


*  Five  per  cent,  illustrations  sole  aesthetic  characteristic. 


In  the  character  given  by  form  of  make-up   and  binding 
variety  is  also  shown : 


Form 


Magazine  . .  . 

Journal  

Newspaper  . . 

Bibelot 

Pamphlet  .  .  . 

Unknown  .  .  . 

Duplicates  .  . 

Net  total 


•a 
E.2 

2.9 

;gb 

•B  w. 

Ul 

in 

i'^ 

as 

n 

8l 

13 
,0 

b 

w 

t« 

W 

2 

•- 

H 

7 

II 

II 

12 

20 

19 

80 

6 

24 

23 

45 

47 

II 

156 

13 

II 

II 

2 

10 

I 

3 
3 

I 
17 

49 
20 

3 

2 

2 

I 

3 

4 

27 

46 

47 

68 

70 

48 

306 

Oh 


0.26 

•SI 

.16 

■05 

.01 

.01 

.01 

1 .00 


Sixty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  total  were  monthly  magazines  and 
periodicals.  The  periodicity  of  the  total  list  is  shown  in  the 
following  tabulation : 


114 


THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 


Periodicity 


-a 

-■ 

.a 

2 

O.S 

2b< 

8:S 

c  ii 

■a 

.a 

a 
2 

2<o 

0 

0  0- 

"3 

I 

3 

I 

I 

I 

I 

8 

I 

2 

I 

4 

14 

33 

27 

41 

56 

38 

209 

3 

I 

3 

4 

I 

12 

lO 

12 

17 

25 

9 

8 

81 

I 

I 

3 

I 

4 

2 

5 

3 

2 

I 

13 

27 

46 

47 

68 

70 

48 

306 

Quarterly 

Bi-monthly    .  . 

Monthly 

Semi-monthly. 

Weekly 

Daily 

Unknown 

Duplicates  . . 
Net  total 


0.03 
.01 
.68 
.04 
.26 

.01 

.04 

1. 00 


3.  The  duration  of  most  of  the  periodicals  has  been  brief.  The 
great  majority  were  ephemerals.  About  one-half  (49  per  cent.) 
of  the  306  lived  but  a  year  or  less.  Many  of  the  103  which  are 
listed  below  as  appearing  for  less  than  a  year  probably  came  out 
only  once — just  enough  to  get  into  a  the  "newspaper  directories." 
There  is  definite  information  that  9  never  had  more  than  a  No. 
I.  Nearly  three- fourths  (72  per  cent.)  survived  less  than  five 
years.  Of  all  those  started,  270,  or  88  per  cent.,  have  ceased  pub- 
lication. Of  the  36  extant,  15  have  been  established  since  January, 
1900.  Among  those  which  are  still  published,  11  are  "mail- 
order" or  "family-story"  periodicals.  The  only  high-grade  maga- 
zine which  has  had  a  long  career  and  still  survives  is  a  journal 
of  literary  criticism,  the  Dial.  The  following  statistics  are 
offered : 

DURATION    (by   DECADAL   PERIODS   OF   ORIGIN) 


u 

+ 

E 

u. 

u 

■2 

Number  of  Years. . . . 

>< 

n) 

tS 

s 

s 

1-1 

a 

^ 

cj 

s 

ca 

rt 

C3 

1) 

_ 

1 

T 

>H 

> 

to 

> 

0 

00 

0 

0 

>^ 

> 

> 

■* 

> 

> 

^ 

Forties  and  fifties... . 

20 

2 

I 

I 

I 

I 

I 

27 

I 

Sixties  to  fire  (incl. 

1871) 

3 
2 

3 

4 

_ 

y 

_ 

« 

46 
47 

2 
4 

Seventies  after  fire. . . 

8 

10 

8 

I 

I 

I 

I 

2 

I 

8 

Eighties 

19 

7 
10 

9 
3 
6 

9 

5 
5 
3 

4 
9 
4 

f 

3 

_ 

- 

J 

. 

4 

68 
70 
48 

6 

9 

IS 

17 

4 

3 

3 

1900   to  date 

27 

6 

2 

Total 

103 
■34 

45 
.15 

34 
.10 

26 

16 

25 
.08 

5 
.02 

6 

5 
.02 

8 

3 
.01 

4 
.01 

4 
.01 

4 
.01 

IS 

•05 

306 

36 

Per  cent 

.08 

■05 

.02 

•03 

.01 

*Those  over  15  years:  16  years,  i;  17,  i;  18,  i-  19,  2;  20,  2;  23,  2;  26.  i;  31,  2;  33,  i;  36,  i;  64,  i. 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  II 5 

FROM  THE  HISTORY 

I.  Origins. — The  detailed  stories  of  the  typical  attempts  to 
found  literary  periodicals  in  Chicago  show  the  ever  constant 
importance  of  the  individual  element,  the  distinctly  personal 
factor.  The  most  tangible  element  in  the  origin  of  the  majority 
is  the  ambition  of  authors,  amateur  literati,  and  young  news- 
paper men  to  establish  personal  organs  for  their  genius.  Many 
are  merely  significant  of  the  "individual  itch  to  write  in  an  'age 
of  print.'  "  But  social  factors  have  been  constantly  manifest,  as 
repeatedly  indicated  in  the  comments  offered  throughout  the 
papers  here  submitted.  The  periodicals  have  been  attempted  in 
response  to  more  or  less  intangible  stimulus  of  environment.  The 
physical  environment  called,  for  example,  in  the  pioneer  days,  for 
prairie  periodicals,  and  in  World's  Fair  days  for  pictorial  period- 
icals. The  spritual  environment,  more  complex  and  difficult  to 
see,  has  had  a  greater  influence  on  the  origin  of  magazines. 
The  changing,  growing  character  of  the  local  social  environment 
has  been  reflected  in  the  typical  periodical  attempts  of  each  decade. 
Through  them  all  there  has  been  the  clearly  voiced  social  demand : 
"Why  can  we  not  have  a  truly  western  literary  magazine  in  Chi- 
cago?" With  changes  of  emphasis  in  the  western  interest,  Chi- 
cago, successively  as  pioneer  western  town,  as  phoenix  city,  as 
market  metropolis,  as  world's  historic  exposition  city,  and  as  a 
center  of  inner  cosmopolitanism,  has  been  reflected  in  the  repeated 
efforts  to  start  new  magazines  with  new  characteristics.  The 
city's  centripetal  power  as  a  metropolis  has  drawn  literary  men 
and  periodicals.  The  growth  and  prospective  increase  in  both 
population  and  culture  in  the  upper  Mississippi  Valley,  the  terri- 
tory which  is  the  immediate  sphere  of  Chicago's  metropolitan 
influence,  have  stimulated  corresponding  increase  in  efforts  to 
found  magazines  in  Chicago.  The  gradual  tightening  of  the 
strings  of  the  national  and  world-wide  social  environments  of 
Chicago  has  constantly  quickened  the  stimuli  from  older  centers, 
leading  to  imitation  and  adaptation  in  the  undertaking  of  Chicago 
periodicals. 

2.  Struggles  for  permanence. — Attention  to  the  steps  taken 
in  the  attempts  to  make  these  periodicals  enduring  has  brought 


Il6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

out  one  social  fact  more  than  any  other — namely,  the  interrelation 
of  interests.  In  sociological  analysis  the  various  interests  have 
been  marked  off  sharply,  notably  by  Dr.  Albion  W.  Small,  as  the 
sixfold  interests — those  of  health,  wealth,  sociability,  knowledge, 
beauty,  and  rightness.  But  in  the  satisfaction  of  any  one  set  of 
these  six  fundamental  desires  on  the  part  of  human  beings  in  asso- 
ciation, the  interdependence  of  interests  is  essential.  The  history 
of  Chicago  periodicals,  at  least,  shows  that  the  literary  phase  of 
the  aesthetic  interest  will  not  work  out,  to  the  satisfaction  point, 
in  a  vacuum.  The  expression  of  the  creative  literary  interest 
through  periodicals  is  necessarily  social.  The  process  is  not 
merely  that  of  writers  getting  their  literary  forms  printed  for 
their  own  gratification,  but  it  is  getting  them  printed  for  the  satis- 
faction of  tlie  desires  of  readers,  the  social  group  appealed  to  by 
the  publisher.  Hence  the  standing  opinion,  or  taste,  of  a  large 
body  of  people  is  a  controlling  factor.  The  author  or  literary 
publisher,  like  the  leader  of  political  opinion,  can  neither  lag 
behind  nor  yet  run  too  far  ahead  of  his'  public.  Still  more  to  the 
point,  successful  and  continuous  display  of  the  art  of  letters 
through  periodicals  has  to  depend  on  the  business,  or  wealth- 
interest  activities — a  rather  materialistic  fact  which  literary  artists 
attempting  periodicals  in  Chicago  have  found  repulsive,  but  a 
fact  none  the  less.  Satisfaction  of  the  taste  for  literary  goods  has 
been  shown  to  be  dependent  on  methods  of  satisfying  taste  for 
material  goods  much  advertised.  The  extreme  extension  of  the 
dependence  of  interests  has  been  shown  in  at  least  fifteen 
instances,  where  the  literary  publishing  interest  has  originated  in, 
or  been  built  up  on,  an  agency  for  the  satisfaction  of  some  other 
phase  of  the  literary  interest,  or  some  interest  altogether  foreign 
to  the  aesthetic  interest.  For  a  general  term  to  characterize  such 
activities,  a  word  has  been  here  adapted  and  used  repeatedly.  It  is' 
the  term  "engraftment."  It  connotes  nothing  necessarily  invidi- 
ous like  the  epithet  "graft,"  current  in  political  writing.  It  is 
possible  that  in  descriptions  of  the  general  interrelations  of  in- 
terests in  the  social  process,  outside  the  comparatively  narrow 
field  of  literary  periodical-publishing,  a  general  and  constant  phe- 
nomenon would  be  accurately  characterized  by  the  term  "engraft- 
ment." 


THE  LITERARY  INTERESTS  OF  CHICAGO  II7 

3.  Measures  of  success  attained. — One  result  of  the  long 
series  of  periodicals  in  Chicago  has  been  the  recording,  in  decade 
after  decade,  of  the  literature  of  locality.  This  was  notably  true 
of  the  periodicals  in  the  early  decades,  when  a  larger  percentage 
of  the  total  was  of  the  purely  literary  type.  The  success  of  the 
Lakeside  Monthly,  in  literary  quality,  was  the  result  of  conspicu- 
ous ability  by  its  editor  and  publisher,  and  to  a  degree  other  such 
personal  achievements  have  been  realized.  Also-  authors  and  illus- 
trators have  been  discovered  through  many  of  the  short-lived 
if  magazines  of  Chicago.  But  for  an  effort  at  periodical  producing 
1|  to  be  a  genuine  success,  a  long  duration  is  essential,  because  of  the 
t!  enduring  desire  for  satisfaction  of  the  literary  interest  on  the 
J  part  of  readers.  Those  Chicago  periodicals  which  have  enjoyed 
a  degree  of  pennanence  have  been  conducted  by  publishers  who 
paid  attention  primarily  to  the  business  of  publishing  according 
to  the  principles  of  trade.  The  lowest  order  of  periodical  that  is 
literary,  broadly  speaking — the  "family-story"  or  "mail-order" 
paper — has  had  the  most  enduring  success  of  all  attempted  in 
Chicago.  The  current  popular  magazines  have  become  established 
as  commercial  enterprises.  The  permanence  of  the  Red  Book 
seems  assured  because,  with  an  effective  appeal  to  the  popular 
interest  in  the  short  story,  it  is  engrafted  on  a  wealthy  firm's 
interests  in  other  lines.  The  continuance  of  the  World  To-Day 
is  predicted  because  its  presentation  of  an  sestheticized  knowledge- 
interest,  looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  of  cosmopolitan  western- 
ism,  is  popular,  and  because  the  magazine  is  published  on  a  busi- 
ness basis.  In  attention  to  business,  account  is  taken  of  competi- 
tion with  the  magazines  published  elsewhere.  The  limitations  of 
the  western  field  are  realized,  and  it  is  recognized  that,  since  two- 
thirds  of  the  reading  done  in  the  country  is  by  people  east  of 
Ohio,  magazines  published  at  New  York,  the  developed  publishing 
center  of  the  country,  will  easily  lead  there,  and,  since  New  York 
is  the  metropolis  of  the  nation,  will  indefinitely  have  a  wide  fol- 
lowing in  all  sections  of  the  national  market. 
1 1  4.  The  many  failures. — The  most  general  cause  for  the  short- 
//  ness  of  life  for  the  great  majority  of  the  periodicals  attempted  in 
■ '  Chicago  has  been  disregard  of  their  commercialization.    In  detail, 


Il8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  SOCIOLOGY 

the  reason  why  so  many  have  been  ephemerals  is  that  they  were  U 
merely  outbursts  showing  personal  aspirations  of  ambitious  ,. 
writers — this  being  conspicuously  so  with  the  bibelots.  Further, 
the  degree  of  potency  in  the  sentimental  demand  of  western 
people  for  a  western  magazine — an  often  expressed  demand  whose 
validity  is  diminishing  with  the  closer  contacts  of  the  nation — has 
been  constantly  overestimated.  Incidentally,  business'  mal- 
practice, in  converting  m.agazines  that  started  out  with  dignity 
and  promise  into  "write-up"  sheets,  has  caused  some  failures. 
These  are  some  of  the  reasons  why  Chicago  is  sometimes'  called 
"the  graveyard  of  magazines." 

In  fine,  the  history  of  efforts  to  establish  various  kinds  of 
magazines,  or  "storehouses"  of  literature,  and  literary  periodicals 
in  Chicago  up  to  1906  indicates  that,  for  the  successful  socializa- 
tion of  the  literary  phase  of  the  aesthetic  interest  through  periodi- 
cals, the  material  interest  must  first  be  assured.  This  implies 
that,  if  taste  in  reading  is  to  be  elevated,  the  points  of  attack  are 
in  the  educational  channels,  through  which  a  demand  for  period- 
icals of  genuine  literary  merit  can  be  made  so  widespread  and 
strong  as  to  make  possible  their  continuous'  publishing  as  a 
profitable  or  at  least  self-supporting  business. 


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DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


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1 

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LD  21-100in-8,'34 


^^^H: 

RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
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